


Limits

by SonriaCat



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-17
Updated: 2012-10-17
Packaged: 2019-03-21 08:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13737240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonriaCat/pseuds/SonriaCat
Summary: Captain Janeway is seriously and permanently injured in a fall. She finds herself facing new, unwelcome, limitations on her physical abilities while theVoyagercrew, desperate for supplies, must solve a mystery on the planet below.  Set about ten years afterVoyageris drawn into the Delta Quadrant.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> _Star Trek_ and _Star Trek: Voyager_ are the copyrighted property of CBS Studios, Inc. This fiction item is intended for entertainment purposes only. No compensation has been received or will be accepted for it, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended or should be implied.

This was the moment she'd worked for her entire adult life. Claari wondered why she didn't feel excited, or vindicated, or even just plain satisfied. Instead, as she stared up at the ever-darkening sky, she found herself feeling nothing. She didn't even feel fear, which was something any reasonable person might find understandable given the circumstances.

Instead, she reviewed the inhabitant list one more time, ensuring that each and every person on the list had checked in and confirmed presence…and that nobody else had. During the last few years, there'd been several attempts to breach security or circumvent the selection process, from both individuals and groups. There'd even been attempts on her life. This was the first time she'd stood alone under the open sky in months.

It was also the last time she ever would, and she was well aware of that.

Finishing her review, she committed the list to the external computer's memory and entered the final commands to establish the security perimeter. As she reached for the  _commit_  button, she felt someone's eyes watching her and looked up.

Saan was standing there, quietly, his hands behind his back. Claari's heart leapt into her throat. "Have you decided to come with us after all?"

Her older brother sighed. "You should know better than that by now."

Where a moment ago she'd felt nothing, now she felt too much. Anger. Fear. Betrayal. Guilt. Grief. She clenched her hands over the control surface in an effort to control her reaction. "Then why are you here?"

"To say goodbye."

"I thought we had already done that."

He walked up to her and took the hands that had been gripping the control surface so tightly they might leave an impression. "I couldn't let things end between us that way, Claari. No matter what, you're still my sister. That won't ever change."

"Even after you're…gone?" She couldn't quite bring herself to say  _dead_ , to acknowledge the significance of what they both saw in the sky. What they'd both known was coming for years.

"Even after."

She wrapped her hands around his, fighting back tears. "I wish I understood why you've chosen not to save yourself or your family."

"Save ourselves for what? A lifetime lived out underground, trying to hold on to a destroyed civilization?" He shook his head, crest flying. "You don't even know if you have enough supplies to outlast the sun-storms."

"We have enough to make more," she answered. "That's enough to last as long as we need." It was an old argument, and some part of her knew the time was well past for making it. He might very well be right. But why wouldn't he even  _try_  and save himself? Why had he just given up?

"Let's not start that again," he said softly. "Let's just say a goodbye we'll both remember well."

She couldn't keep her tears from starting. "I don't want to lose you."

He pulled her close. "I know."

"I still don't understand why I have to."

"That doesn't matter now." He stroked her crest in a gesture of comfort. "You don't have to understand. You just have to accept."

She took a long, shuddering breath, steadying herself. "When it...the storms break, I hope it will be quick and painless. For all of you."

"I do too." He stepped back, looking at her face. "And I believe it will be."

She touched the side of his face. "I'll miss you so much. Who's going to keep me out of trouble?"

"You'll do fine." He smiled, but she could see tears in his eyes. "May all the good spirits keep watch over you, little sister, and all the bad ones pass you by."

"Yes," she whispered. "You too."

There was nothing left to say after that, and it wasn't Saan's way to prolong a departure. It only made things worse, he always said. So after one last hug, he turned and walked away from the tunnel that led to their underground chamber. She watched him go, noticing that the sky was starting to take on an angry red tinge. The star-storm would break soon.

Taking what she knew was her last-ever breath of surface air, Claari enabled the final security protocol, walked into the tunnel, and shut the door behind her.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a routine supply-gathering mission. There was no apparent danger, nothing that indicated the need for extra caution. So  _Voyager_ 's first officer hadn't objected when her captain announced the intent to beam down and stretch her legs a little. He'd understood that she wasn't immune to the occasional bouts of cabin fever that affected all of the crew from time to time.

But as he hurried toward sickbay, Chakotay wondered if there was something he hadn't noticed, some small indicator somewhere that would have alerted him that all was not as it seemed. What would he find when he reviewed the final logs from this mission?

He skidded to a halt inside the sickbay doors, surveying the chaos until he spotted Captain Janeway lying unconscious on a bio-bed. The doctor was working over her at a seemingly impossible speed. Neelix paced in a corner, anguish on his face and anxiety radiating from every movement he made.

Chakotay strode up to him. "What happened?"

"It was an accident, Commander! I was watching out for her. I only looked away for a second!"

"Calm down, Neelix. Nobody's blaming you for anything."  _If there's even any blame to be had._  "Just tell me how she got hurt."

He took a deep breath. "We were gathering some roots from the top of a cliff. The ground seemed solid enough. I warned her to be careful about the drop, but she said she was paying attention. I was digging, and she told me she'd found something on the tricorder. When I looked up, she was standing on the very edge of the cliff. I called out, and it must have startled her because the next thing I knew she had gone right over the edge!"

"Did she slip?"

"Yes, on some loose rock, I think. I didn't check. I was trying to get down to her." He turned toward the bio-bed. "Is she going to be all right?"

"She's pretty strong. It's a good thing you were there to call for beam-out right away." He hoped he sounded convincing. "This isn't your fault, Neelix. She has the sense to stay away from the edge of a cliff, most of the time."

The Talaxian's expression didn't change as he looked over toward the bio-bed. Chakotay understood how he felt.

"Why don't you go back down there and see if you can figure out what might have interested her enough to forget to pay attention."

Neelix nodded. "I'll do that, Commander. You'll call me as soon as you know?"

"Yes. Good luck."

In the office, Tom Paris was running a sterilizer over a set of surgical instruments. Chakotay decided he didn't like the look on his face. "How is she?"

"Her life's not in any danger." Tom didn't look up. "But it was a bad fall."

" _How_  bad?"

Meeting his eyes, Tom indicated the surgical instruments. "There's a lot of damage to her spinal cord. The doc thinks he can repair it, but…" He swallowed. "It's pretty extensive."

"Anything else?"

"Some internal bleeding, a couple of broken bones. Nothing that'd be a problem if it weren't for the back injury."

"How soon will you know?"

He shook his head. "I'll let you know as soon as I do." Picking up the tray, he exited the office. Chakotay watched him go, suppressing the urge to follow. He knew they'd do their best.

 _Kathryn_ , he thought,  _why the hell weren't you paying attention?_

#

 _Waiting is painful_ , Chakotay had read once.  _Forgetting is painful. But not knowing what to do is the worst kind of suffering._

He took another sip of his tea as he stared out the ready room window.  _It's not quite the same_ , he told himself.  _Tom and the Doctor know what to do in Sickbay. Neelix and Tuvok know what to do on the surface. Harry and Seven know what to do in Astrometrics_.

They'd worked together for ten years now, a much longer period than intended for any starship crew after the  _Galaxy_ -class program ended. While he'd made the assignments, the crew was so accustomed to working together by now that there was really no need for monitoring. Indeed, he'd sometimes had to gently remind Kathryn to be patient and let them do their jobs.

She'd usually responded with teasing comments about whether there was any continued need for a captain – or a first officer. He laughed along with her; they really were funny. But he wasn't unaware of the underlying frustration in those conversations.

After all, he felt it too sometimes. Such as now. What was he supposed to do while waiting? Three hours had passed with no word from sickbay, and he'd eventually retreated here, to the ready room, where he could pace and brood in privacy without putting the bridge crew any further on edge.

Surely the surgery wouldn't have taken  _this_  long if the injuries were irreparable, right? It would take longer to do a full repair than to simply patch things as best they could and finish up.

Right?

Chakotay took another sip and grimaced. The tea had gone cold.

#

"Hey, Seven, look at this."

Seven of Nine moved to look over Harry Kim's shoulder. "Interesting. Do you believe this could be the cause of the captain's careless behavior?"

He frowned. "Careless?"

"She would not have fallen had she not allowed herself to become distracted from her surroundings. Do you think this could be the cause of her distraction?"

"I'm not sure I'd call it  _careless_ , but I'd have been excited if I saw this. Traces of dilithium? B'Elanna's been going crazy trying to figure out how to extend the current set of crystals. They're already a year past their normal life and we're still looking at a long way to go."

"I am aware of the current engineering situation," said Seven softly, treading carefully in what was obviously emotional territory. "But that does not adequately explain the captain's actions."

"She was probably excited. I know I am." He reached for the comm. "Kim to Chakotay."

Seven frowned as she considered Harry's words. How could allowing oneself to become focused to the point of distraction be anything  _but_  careless, particularly in an unknown environment? While their scans had shown no life on the planet below, there were still many other types of dangers that could be present.

She considered asking the doctor about it later, when it was more convenient, but it occurred to her that it might be a while before that would be possible. Despite the passage of time, there'd been no further announcements about the captain's condition after she had entered surgery.

Seven realized she had missed the conversation between Harry and Chakotay. "What did the Commander say?"

"He's on his way. He wants to take a look."

She froze the results of the scans so they would still be on the screens when Chakotay arrived, mulling over her confusion about Harry's reaction. "Lieutenant, may I ask a question?"

He looked up and gestured for her to continue.

"Would you say that the captain is emotional when it comes to the ship's operational status?"

Harry chuckled. "Wouldn't you?"

"I'm not certain. You implied that her carelessness was the result of an emotional reaction, but I'm not certain why a potential engineering solution could cause any sort of emotion."

"It's not the engineering part of it," he said after a moment's thought. "It's the significance it has regarding the chances of us getting home. She's pretty emotionally involved in that. It's personal for her." At her blank look, he tried again. "She still feels responsible for us being trapped in the first place, and is trying to work through some of that guilt."

"But surely she has realized by now that there is no reason for that guilt," Seven argued. "Her decision to destroy the Array was perfectly appropriate and extremely ethical. For her to fail to realize that suggests she has not taken any time for reflection. That is difficult to comprehend given the amount of time we have been here."

"She's stubborn that way."

"That is irrational," stated Seven. "Perhaps that emotional response has contributed to her injury. Maybe she will learn from the experience."

"You're right about the contribution," he said, "but I won't count on her avoiding a repeat. That's what makes her a good captain."

"Irrational behavior and failure to learn from experience make Captain Janeway a 'good' captain?"

" _Dedication_  makes Captain Janeway a good captain. You can't argue that she's that."

"I agree," she replied. "But I fail to understand the connection between the captain's dedication to this ship and her careless and unsafe behavior on the planet."

Harry was spared the need to reply by Chakotay's arrival. The first officer was clearly in no mood for casual conversation. "Report."

"I think we might have found what the captain was looking at," said Harry, indicating the readout. "Take a look."

Chakotay did, and let his breath out in a low whistle. "That'd certainly get  _my_  attention after all those engineering reports B'Elanna's been submitting."

So, mused Seven, he agreed with Lieutenant Kim's assessment of the captain's disregard for safety. Aloud she asked, "Has the team on the planet found any other evidence of dilithium crystals?"

Chakotay tapped his communicator. "Chakotay to away team."

" _Tuvok here."_

"Anything to report?"

" _Negative, Commander,"_  replied the Vulcan.  _"We would have contacted you immediately had we detected anything of interest."_

"Try scanning for traces of dilithium. They'd be faint, but they might be there."

A pause. They could hear shouts in the background before Tuvok's voice returned _. "The quartz in the soil just above the cliff drop appears to show signs of a fourth-dimensional lattice, though not at a level sufficient to trigger a tricorder set to general scan. Do you believe this is what the captain was looking for?"_

"Dilithium's been on everyone's mind lately. Is there any evidence of actual crystals?"

" _Not at this point, but we will pursue this line of inquiry_."

"Keep me posted," said Chakotay, signing off. He turned back to Seven and Harry. "Good work."

"I would like to continue analysis of the tricorder readings," said Seven. "It is still possible this is not the only phenomenon which could have caused the captain's…" her gaze slid to Harry, "…dedication to outweigh reasonable precautions."

"Agreed. Harry, I'll need you on the Bridge, though. I'm going to sickbay."

Sickbay? Had she missed something else during Harry's initial conversation with the bridge about their findings?

#

The doctor looked up as he strode through the doors. "Commander. We were going to call you."

Something about the look on Tom Paris' face suggested otherwise, but he maintained his silence. Chakotay made a mental note to check that out privately. "What can you tell me?"

"Well, we had thought to wait until she was awake," began the doctor, causing Tom's face to change again. "Although Mr. Paris believed we should make the report without delay."

So that's what that look had been about. "We can debate that later. I'm here. How is she?"

"Not too well," admitted the doctor. "We have completed the surgery, and now only time can tell. There is significant nerve damage, but..."

"Doctor, I appreciate you trying to break the news gently, but if there's permanent damage, I need to know."

The doctor looked nonplussed; Tom jumped in before he could make what Chakotay suspected would have been a comment about his own demeanor. "Commander, she must have landed directly on something sharp. Two of the vertebrae near her waist were broken and there was some penetration of the actual nervous system part of the spinal cord itself."

"Can't we repair that?"

"We easily handled the broken vertebrae," replied the doctor. "But some of the nerves in the spinal cord were severed; some were only stretched and some weren't damaged at all."

"Apparently that's what stopped the rock," muttered Tom. "It doesn't appear to have gone any deeper than that."

"There was significant nerve damage," continued the doctor. "That is why I performed surgery with Mr. Paris assisting. We have made great advances in the last few years in the area of neurological repair, but not all of the damage could be totally neutralized. The nerves that were severed, particularly, can be rejoined, but they will not function as if they were 'good as new.'"

"So what's the prognosis?" asked Chakotay.

"At this point, we're not sure," the doctor admitted. "It will be some time before the extent of the damage and the efficiency of my repairs can be fully measured. There will at least some loss of sensation and motor function below her waist. At best, it will be a minor annoyance."

"And at worst?"

The doctor's tone softened. "Total inability to feel or move below the injury."

"She's resting now," said Tom. "Doc says that's the best thing for her now that we've done everything we can. He wants to let her wake up on her own. Maybe her own system can take over some of the repairs where we couldn't."

"Fair enough," said Chakotay, although his gaze slid over to the bio-bed where she was resting. He let his feet follow, looking down at the sleeping form. She was so still, unlike the dynamic Kathryn Janeway he saw almost every day. And she was so  _small_. He often forgot how petite she was. Her force of personality more than made up for her lack of physical size.

He knew it was a minor breach of etiquette, but he reached down to stroke the side of her face anyway. "Heal, Kathryn."

Then, looking back up, he locked eyes with the doctor. "I understand why you didn't call me before," he said. "But don't hesitate next time. Call me as soon as you learn  _anything_  else."

#

"Well, look at that," said Neelix happily.

Inwardly, Tuvok agreed that it was a heartening sight. They stood at the mouth of a cave, shining a light inside. Crystal glittered everywhere. And the tricorder registered at least half of it as having the extra structural lattice of dilithium...albeit in its natural state.

Still, they could refine it in engineering. And there was enough here to supply them for quite some time. The captain's hunch had been right; Torres would be extremely pleased.

The captain.

Tuvok tapped his communicator. "Away team to  _Voyager_."

" _Go ahead,"_  came Harry Kim's voice.

"I need to speak with Commander Chakotay. Is he available?"

" _No, uh...he's in sickbay. Should I patch you through to his commbadge?"_

"Please." Tuvok waited while Harry made the connection. "Commander, we have found dilithium crystals on the planet."

" _Great, Tuvok! Have an engineering team get down there right away. Have you told B'Elanna?"_

"I leave that privilege to you," said Tuvok. He took a breath. "Has there been any news about the captain?"

Chakotay's voice took on a tone that suggested he might be frowning.  _"We still don't know for sure. I'll brief you when you get back up."_

"Acknowledged. Tuvok out."

#

Had he been chafing at inactivity earlier? Now, mused Chakotay, it seemed that he was going to be able to skip part of the workout he had planned for the evening. Between sickbay, Astrometrics, engineering and the bridge, he'd gotten plenty of walking – and running – done during the past several hours.

After leaving sickbay, he'd returned to the bridge. But barely an hour later, B'Elanna had called him to Engineering. The away team had returned with a sample of the dilithium they had found. B'Elanna was testing it for usefulness, and wanted him to see the results. He'd have wanted to see them anyway. He wanted a look at those elusive mineral formations that could offer so much to the ship, yet seemed to be taking so much from its captain.

 _No use personifying things_ , he chided himself as the doors to engineering parted before him.  _The dilithium is just an object. It's my reaction to it that changes my perception._

Near the back of the main engineering deck, B'Elanna Torres had set up multiple containment fields around a meter-square testing chamber. One of the new dilithium crystals was in the middle of the chamber, held in place by electromagnets. From the top of the chamber, the chief engineer carefully aimed a stream of matter at the crystal. Then, reaching to the bottom, she aimed a stream of antimatter at the same place.

The crystal shattered.

B'Elanna quickly shut down the experiment before the matter and antimatter could mix directly. She looked up at Chakotay, an expression of frustration on her face.

"That's the third sample I've tried," she said softly, though her voice was strained.

He found a chair and sat down hard. "Any thoughts why?"

"My guess is that the fourth-dimensional lattice in the crystals has been warped or weakened somehow, which is causing the matter and antimatter to react with the crystal itself. I'd need to look at a sample with a scanning electron microscope to confirm that."

"Did the away team bring back enough for you to do that?"

"Yes. If this third crystal shattered, that was going to be my next move."

"If you're right, could we compensate somehow?"

"I hope I'm wrong, because the answer is no. But if I'm right, it still could be a local phenomenon."

B'Elanna was rarely wrong about engineering matters. "What difference would that make?"

"We've established that there's dilithium on the planet. We would need to find another source of it, though, and see if those crystals also have warped lattices. It's possible that only the crystals from this location have them. It could have been caused by some local condition that happened while they were being formed."

Chakotay sighed. This mission was turning out to be anything but routine.

"Check it out," he said. "If you need to, scan for other dilithium deposits on the planet and find out if it's a local phenomenon. Let me know as soon as you know something."

"Aye, sir," she said. Then she asked, "How's the captain?"

"Not too good," he admitted. "The doctor thinks there's going to be some damage to her neurological system. Her ability to walk could be compromised."

"Can't he fix that?"

"Apparently not. He and Tom finished the surgery. They're letting her come out of it on her own, hoping her body can do some of the healing itself."

"But if she can't walk, and it's permanent...what would happen then?"

Chakotay's face was grim. "I really don't know."

#

The first sensation she was aware of was something warm surrounding her left hand.

Kathryn Janeway tried to open her eyes, but it didn't work. Mentally gritting her teeth, she commanded the muscles in the lids to contract. They protested loudly.

On the third try, it worked. The warmth around her hand was Chakotay's hands. He was sitting on a chair beside the bio-bed, her hand in his, waiting for her to wake.

Or trying to, anyway. He had fallen fast asleep.

She tried to say his name, but her mouth was too dry. Licking her lips, she tried again.

This time, the second try was the charm. "Chakotay."

He stirred, then opened his eyes wide as he realized who had spoken. "Kath – Captain!"

From the look on his face, he was definitely glad to see her awake. There were worry lines around his eyes. About what? Her? She knew she'd fallen...how bad was it?

"How long was I out?" she asked.

He checked a chrono. "About fifteen hours, counting the time you were in surgery."

" _Surgery?"_

"How do you feel?" His voice was gentle.

Frowning, she paid attention to her body for a second. Everything seemed all right. Except...

"I can't feel my legs!"

"Not at all?"

She concentrated again. "I don't think so."

Chakotay let go of her hand and slid his hands to a point midway down her left thigh. He squeezed. "Can you feel that?"

"No." She fought the panic starting to nibble at her mind.

He squeezed again. "I felt that," she said, relief in her voice.

The look on his face changed again. "Computer, activate Emergency Medical Hologram."

"What is it?" she asked.

"You should have done more than feel that," he said in a controlled tone. "You should have pushed me away. I squeezed so hard that you're going to have a bruise."

#

According to the chrono, it was nearly morning, which meant Chakotay had been up – or at least out of his quarters – all night. He had stayed in sickbay while the doctor finished testing. He wanted to hear the results as soon as they came in, and aside of one sidelong glance the captain hadn't made any comments about that.

But she was the one who was being treated.

"Captain," began the doctor, "I'm afraid the news isn't good."

She seemed to steel herself. "I'll need to know sooner or later. It might as well be now."

He sighed. "The rejoined nerves have only recovered fifteen percent of their original effectiveness. Combining that with the recovery of the injured, but intact, nerves, and the nerves that weren't damaged, you've only regained twenty-five to thirty percent of your original neurological function below the waist."

"Is there any way to improve that?"

"I'm sorry, Captain." The doctor's face was haggard. "I've done everything I can."

She closed her eyes and swallowed. Chakotay didn't envy her whatever thoughts might be going through her mind.

After a long moment, she opened them again. "What does this mean in practical terms? What limits will I have?"

Chakotay had never seen the lines on the doctor's face change. But now, they deepened. "You can move your legs and all of the muscle damage has been repaired. They'll support your weight if you stand, and in fact you should keep exercising them so the muscles won't atrophy. But you can't walk. The nerve impulses will no longer correctly send messages to the muscles to contract. I recommend the use of a hover chair."

 _A hover chair..._  "Isn't there any sort of artificial means to augment the nerve impulses so the muscles will respond correctly?"

"That's more of an engineering concept," answered the doctor. "I'm afraid I don't have the expertise to develop such a means."

But B'Elanna Torres might. Chakotay resolved to ask her the next time he saw her.

Kathryn, who had been sitting up on the bio-bed, let herself fall back. "So that's it, then."

"What?" asked the doctor and Chakotay together.

"I can't command the ship if I can't even walk the decks. Chakotay, you'll have to take command."

Both men stared in astonishment. The doctor spoke first.

"Captain, with all due respect, that's ridiculous. You have no brain damage. You can access almost any area of the ship with a hover chair. You can still perform just about any task you want. There's no reason for you to give up command!"

"The crew needs a captain who can lead," she argued. "I can't lead from a hover chair. I can still contribute. I  _will_  still contribute. But I can't lead. Chakotay can take command and finish our mission back to the Alpha Quadrant."

"I can," he said levelly, "but I won't."

"You can't force me!"

"Captain, this is an order I cannot, in any good conscience, obey. And I don't think Tuvok would, either. Besides," and his voice grew softer, "I don't think you want to do it anyway. At least take some time to think about this before making decisions."

For a long moment she just stared at him, emotions flying across her face. There was no doubt that he saw betrayal and anger there, but he wondered if that was everything. Somehow, he didn't think it likely.

Finally, she broke the silence.

"Then I guess I can't give the order," she said, softly, angrily. "It seems I have no choice but to stay in command.  _Alone_."


	3. Chapter 3

After a long moment of stunned silence, it seemed that everyone spoke at once. Interestingly, Harry Kim's voice was the loudest. "She tried to  _give up command?_  Just like that?"

Chakotay looked around the briefing room, taking in the various expressions of shock and disbelief. He'd had a chance to regain his equilibrium before calling this meeting, and it helped him keep his own opinions from showing now. "Yes, just like that."

"That does not seem like the captain," commented Seven of Nine, who was seated across from Harry. In contrast to his stunned look, her expression showed confusion. "It is not in her personality to capitulate so easily."

"I agree," he answered. "That's not the Kathryn Janeway we know. I think she was just reacting to the shock instead of thinking the decision through. That's why I refused the order."

"So what now?" asked Tom.

"I'll stay in command until the doctor releases her from care, but no longer than that." He paused and looked around again. "There's going to be an adjustment period once she's back on duty. She may be distant, or bitter, or even angry for a while. I'll try and take the worst of it off all of you, but I wanted to warn you that the captain may be a bit…difficult…until she's come to terms with these issues. I don't want there to be any surprises."

"Is there anything we can do to help?" asked Neelix.

"Be yourself and don't give her any special treatment, but let her have the emotional space she needs. She might be a little unpleasant for a while, but your support is still important."

"I don't think there's any question as to whether she has our support," replied Tuvok softly. "Commander, we will follow your guidance."

Looking around the table, Chakotay could see that the senior officers' expressions had become more uniform now. He let himself relax a little. They'd reacted exactly as he had hoped.

#

Unfortunately,  _she_  reacted exactly as he had feared.

Distant? She'd barely come out of her ready room after retaking command yesterday.

Angry? She'd mainly communicated in snarls since then.

Bitter? How about  _stubborn_? Despite B'Elanna rigging a smaller hover chair than those usually available, she'd steadfastly refused to use it. Instead, Kathryn was determined that through some combination of practice and research, she'd find a way to walk again.

In just the three days since she'd woken up, her pursuits had become so obsessive that even the doctor – who wasn't exactly known for his own charming personality – had been hard-pressed to put up with her at times. Some of the other crew, such as Neelix, hadn't even had the courage to approach her.

As he kept watch on the bridge, musing that perhaps "hopelessly optimistic" had been too strong a description for his initial reaction, Chakotay heard a faint but unmistakable  _thump_  from the ready room.

At the helm, Tom rolled his eyes. "She doesn't know when to quit, does she?"

He frowned, but didn't respond. Instead, he quietly tapped a command into his armchair monitor and called up an image of the ready room. He'd hesitated about tapping into the security feeds, but she could hurt herself badly enough to make the damage worse. His compromise had been to only turn it on whenever he thought it truly necessary.

She must have been after a cup of coffee. Kathryn had fallen halfway between the desk and the replicator, but was already struggling to her feet. Her face was set in a grim, determined mask.

With a sigh, Chakotay turned the monitor back off. She was well enough for the moment, but how long would she keep this up? How long  _could_  she?

#

Despite his transfer to Engineering, Lieutenant Gary Randleman had never stopped being a geologist at heart. He hadn't realized that it still showed, though, until Lieutenant Commander Torres had assigned him to the planetary survey. "I think you'll enjoy this one," she'd said.

She was right: he had. At first. Now, though, he snapped off his tricorder with more than the necessary amount of force. He'd scanned three dilithium deposits and found three sets with warped lattice structures. Although the degree and direction had varied, none of them were acceptable for use aboard  _Voyager_.

He'd carefully stored the data – maybe they'd find something useful, like a pattern, in the post-survey analysis – but right now he needed a break. Taking a deep breath, he left the cave and surveyed the bleak landscape around it. They were close to the equator, and there was plenty of water in the air. Why, then, did this area appear more like a desert?

Lieutenant Vorik appeared at his side. "Is there a problem?"

"No, sir," Gary responded. "I just came out for a breath of fresh air."

"Have you scanned the deposits?"

"Yes." Vorik, despite being a Vulcan, seemed to understand the expression on Gary's face. He didn't ask whether he'd found anything useful.

Instead, he moved to stand beside him, hands clasping behind his back. "Have you any theories about the causes for the warping in the crystals' lattices?"

Gary sighed. "No. But  _something's_  not right here."

"Elaborate."

He waved a hand in the general direction of the desert. "I took a quick bio-scan earlier. The air's breathable. The climate is right. There are biogenic agents present; in fact, there's fossil evidence of amino acids. So why is there  _no_  life on this planet, not even basic lichens?"

"Have you pursued this line of inquiry?"

"It's not really my field." Gary sighed. "Besides, we're short on time if we're going to finish before the end of the day. I've been focusing on finding usable dilithium."

"Nevertheless, some general survey data might be useful." Vorik turned to go back into the cave. "We are scheduled to move on to the next survey site in seven point four minutes. Please ensure you are at the beam-out point before then."

Taking the hint, Gary looked around and noted that the outcroppings of rock in the area were rather sharp; they showed no signs of weathering or chemical erosion. They'd be recent, then, and might be a good place to start a general scan. Turning the tricorder back on, he began walking toward the nearest one.

And stopped, blinking. Three  _million_  years old?

That wasn't exactly recent. He scanned the soil beneath his feet. It was the exact same age.

 _That_  should've been impossible. Over time, the outcroppings should have gradually begun crumbling, layer by layer; this soil should have showed a greater age as it was derived from an older rock layer.

Frowning, and suddenly conscious of the limited time before beam-out, Gary reset the tricorder for a wide-band scan and began mentally composing a proposal for use of the ships' sensors.

#

She was going to get that coffee. She could already feel the warmth of the mug in her hand and the taste the scalding, bitter liquid in her mouth. She was going to get that coffee. And she was going to do it by herself.

Using her arms, hands and the floor, Kathryn Janeway dragged herself to the nearest piece of furniture. Breathing heavily, she pushed herself back up to a standing position. At least she was halfway to the replicator now, instead of still behind her desk.

It was definitely progress – and progress made without the hover chair that sat quietly in the corner of her ready room. Its very presence seemed to mock her efforts, but she hadn't been able to convince the Doctor to take it back to Sickbay.

Steadying herself, Kathryn pushed off and took a careful step away from the chair she'd used as a prop. Then she took another. And another. They were small steps, and pain shot up her back, but she was still on her feet.

She smiled in satisfaction. She was  _going_  to get that coffee.

She did. She made it all the way to the replicator and put a hand against the wall to steady herself. "Coffee, black."

Kathryn could easily have cheered at the small triumph. Taking a sip despite the lack of any time for the drink to cool, she took a long breath before pushing off from the wall.

Two steps later, her boot caught on the carpet and she stumbled. She tried to take a quick step to regain her balance, but her legs wouldn't move the right way and she fell anyway. The mug slipped from her grasp and coffee spilled onto the carpet.

Lying on her stomach, Kathryn buried her face in her hands while she got her breath back. At least she had enough replicator rations for another cup.

Turning over, she started pushing herself back toward the replicator. She had just gotten to the wall, and was searching for enough purchase to pull herself up, when the door to the ready room hissed open.

"You should have knocked. And I'm not in the mood for visitors."

"I'm sure you aren't," replied Chakotay, carefully standing in front of the door, blocking the view from the bridge, until it closed. "That's why I didn't knock."

"What do you want?"

"I want you to have a cup of coffee."

"I can get  _myself_  a cup of coffee, Commander. I don't need your help."

His gaze went to the mug and stain on the floor. "I don't doubt that. I'm just wondering how much will go to waste first."

"The carpet can be cleaned."

"Yes," he answered. "It can." Then, crossing over to her and kneeling down to reach for her, he added, "but replicator rations can't be replaced."

Still glaring, she shoved against the carpet until she was sitting up, back against the wall.

His hands dropped to the floor. "Please, Kathryn. The survey teams will be back soon, and you have more important things to do than spend all this time getting a cup of coffee."

 _Damn it._  He was right, of course; this wasn't just a waste of replicator rations. With a grimace, she reached up, linked her arms around his shoulders and then concentrated on getting her feet underneath her as he pulled her up.

She wasn't prepared for the sudden fresh pain as her legs' weight pulled against her back. Gasping, Kathryn stumbled again. He caught her against his chest, one arm slipping around her waist. "Easy there."

It was almost an embrace, and she had to fight a sudden urge to bury her face against his uniform and cry.  _Why_  was this happening to her? Why did she have to get hurt in the one way that the Doctor couldn't fix?

"Hey." Chakotay tipped her face back, as if he'd sensed the mercurial shift in her emotions. He probably had, she realized; she was trembling. "None of that. We're going to get through this."

"Are we?"

"Absolutely." His voice and eyes were firm and, she realized, intended to help her keep from losing control. She was grateful; this would be far worse if he were being sad and sympathetic.

"We're going to go to the desk now," he continued. "Think you can handle it?"

She looked at the distance and sighed. Pain was still shooting across her hips and down her legs, throbbing in time with her pulse. The analgesic the Doctor had prescribed had worn off a long time ago.

Without further comment, Chakotay picked her up and carried her over, settling her into her chair before getting a fresh cup of coffee from the replicator. After carrying it over to her desk, he paused and looked down at her with an unreadable expression. "You going to be all right?"

"Yes," she said, wrapping her hands around the mug and determined to especially enjoy this particular cup. "Thank you, Chakotay."

It was only when he turned to exit that she saw his hands were shaking.

#

He couldn't lose control here on the bridge where everyone would see him. Clenching his hands, Chakotay fought to steady his breathing. The mixture of anger, frustration and pain at seeing his captain – his friend – suffering so badly was overwhelming.

So was the need to ignore how  _aware_  he'd been at her sudden shift of mood, how good it had felt to offer her a bit of comfort while she stood in his arms. This was hardly the time for that!

Surreptitious deep breaths weren't working. Instead, he headed for the turbolift and the privacy it offered. "Engineering." Then he leaned against the wall and just let himself shudder for a minute. It was enough. By the time the doors slid open, he'd steadied himself.

B'Elanna looked up as he came into Engineering. "Something I can do for you?"

"How's the project going?"

She glanced over to the console where Carey, Nicoletti and the Doctor were working. A schematic hovered in the air, turning slowly. "They're making progress. You'd have to ask them about the details. I don't understand all the medical aspects."

"No," he answered. "I don't want to interrupt. Do you have a time frame?"

"Like I said," she repeated. "You'd have to ask them about the details."

"B'Elanna," he said, letting a little of his frustration creep into his tone. "I'm not sure how much longer we can wait before she melts down."

"Or before you do?"

He shot her a look.

She dropped her shoulders. "All right. I'll push for tomorrow afternoon."

#

"Curious," said Seven of Nine, for perhaps the sixth time in ten minutes.

"What is it?" asked Gary Randleman. He was beginning to understand what it was that grated on B'Elanna Torres when it came to Seven, but he personally found it amusing rather than annoying. She reminded him of his wife, an evolutionary biologist who could get just as wrapped up in her work – and just as quietly wound up when things didn't make sense.

Even now, after all this time, he missed her terribly.

Seven tapped a command into the Astrometrics console, causing a network of red lines to appear on the display of the planet and firmly yanking Gary's thoughts back into the present. Those looked like –

"Fault lines," she said. "There appear to be seven major tectonic plates and ten minor plates on the planet. This would be consistent with its size and composition."

"But there's no evidence of geological activity during the last three million years," he argued. "Not a single volcano, not one earthquake, not even natural weathering. And the planet simply isn't old enough to be completely cooled yet."

"Despite its age, it would seem that it has indeed cooled. I'm scanning for any evidence of continental drift."

He held his tongue, but wasn't surprised when the scan came up completely negative. It wasn't  _right_  – the rules for tectonic and seismic activity were the same on planet after planet throughout the galaxy – but it made a certain kind of sense. If all of the other geologic processes had somehow been frozen...

"Interesting," said Seven. Gary hid a smile. At least she was using a different word this time.

But it didn't solve the mystery. He frowned. "This doesn't make sense. I found all the precursors of life down there, but nothing alive. Now we see all the right elements for geologic activity, but not a bit of it actually happening. Even a completely cooled and static planet should have some change." He flicked a glance at her. "In your…travels…did you become aware of any other planets like this?"

"I can't think of any encountered by the collective," she answered. "This situation does appear to be unique."

"More like odd," he muttered. "Will you try some archaeological scans? I saw some simple fossils down there, so there's some sort of a record."

By the time those were complete, Seven had gone completely still. He didn't blame her.

There were tools buried under the surface. At some point in the past, there hadn't just been life on this planet. There had been  _intelligent_  life.

So where was it now? How – and why – had everything been so abruptly suspended?

#

"And have you noticed any improvement in your range of motion?"

"None." Kathryn fixed her eyes firmly on the wall behind the doctor. Her legs lay in front of her on the bio-bed, unmoving. She'd had to pull them up onto the bed with her hands just so that he could scan them.

"Not for lack of trying, I imagine," he retorted. "I haven't heard anything about you being out and about with the hover chair."

She chose not to justify that with an answer.

He sighed and closed the scanner. "Captain, I'm not showing any signs of neurologic improvement, but I am seeing evidence of bruising on your arms and torso. You're trying to walk and falling, aren't you?"

"I just need to get used to walking again. Re-train the muscles."

"Captain, your muscles aren't the problem. They're reacting to neural impulses just fine. It's the impulses themselves that are impaired."

She kept her eyes right where they were. "I can adjust."

Shaking his head, the doctor stepped into his office to retrieve a padd. "I wondered if you were going to react this way."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He handed her the padd and let her read over it. "Several years ago, Dr. Toby Russell at the Adelman Institute helped to create a protocol that might work in your case."

"Toby Russell? Isn't she the one who was stripped of her medical license over illicitly continuing research into genetronic replication?"

"That's why she never completed this research. She felt that genetronics was the better option, and after she was found out, she was permanently barred from  _any_  medical research."

"Has this procedure ever actually been tested?"

"No," answered the doctor. "But I've been consulting with some specialists in engineering. We think we might have found a way to create these neural transducers.

"The original concept involved picking up the electrical impulses from your brain and transmitting them directly to your muscles, but the mechanisms for that are too difficult to replicate. As you can see, instead we're proposing using a low-powered carrier wave to transmit the impulses from a point on your spinal cord directly above the injury, to a point directly below it. The distance is about twenty-five centimeters."

She put the padd onto the bio-bed. "What are the odds of this actually working?"

"I can't estimate them since it hasn't been tried before. But we wouldn't have brought this to you unless I thought there was a reasonable chance of success."

Kathryn considered for a long moment. "How long will it take for you to install these – what did you call them?"

"Neural transducers," he replied. "They're external, but I will have to perform minor surgery. Perhaps about twenty minutes. You would be here for about an hour total, including pre- and post-operative work."

"External? They'll be visible?"

"I'd like to make sure they work before we consider any sort of internal placement."

She nodded and tapped her commbadge. "Janeway to Chakotay. Do we have any updates from the planet? Are there any signs of danger?"

" _We still have teams down there, but no success to report. And no hostiles, either. Were you expecting some?"_

"No. I just wanted to make sure you could spare me for a few hours."

" _Oh. You've talked to the Doctor, then?"_

Kathryn frowned. How had he guessed that? "Yes. He wants to try a procedure."

" _I think we'll be okay. Good luck, Captain."_

#

"So how long did the surgery actually take?" asked Tom. After going off-shift, he had dropped by Engineering for a visit.

"About an hour and fifteen minutes," answered B'Elanna, who had gotten a report from the doctor about the transducers' initial performance. "But it seemed like everything went well."

"And did it work out?"

She tapped a couple of commands into her console, and the three-dimensional simulation in front of her changed slightly. "I think so, but I couldn't talk to the doctor very long. One of the dilithium crystals fractured and I had to take care of that."

"One of the new crystals?"

"No," she said with a long sigh. "One of the existing ones. And I couldn't recrystallize it. We installed our last viable spare."

"Oh, no," he said softly. "Would you like me to leave you alone, then, and let you work?"

"No. I could use the company…unless you'd rather go. This might be boring."

"You're never boring." He crossed behind her and slid his arms around her waist, looking over her shoulder. "What are you trying to do?"

"I have an idea about those new crystals. Their composition is correct; it's the lattice structure that's causing the problems. What if I could break them down into their component elements and re-form them with the correct lattice?"

"That should be fairly simple. Just use the transporter."

"I tried, and breaking them down was easy. It was re-forming them that was the problem. I can't just reset the pattern buffers for the right structure; they won't re-materialize large enough." She indicated a pile of shiny, but useless shards.

"Now what?"

"Well, since we can get the crystals broken down, it's just a matter of how they can be created again. I'm trying to work up a way to create the crystals from their basic elements instead of re-creating them." She leaned back, wrapping her arms around his. "Randleman's on his way down to help. You might not want to get too comfortable."

He kissed the side of her neck. "I'm never too comfortable around you."

"Even after six years?"

" _Especially_  after six years." He nuzzled the skin behind her right ear. "It's too bad we won't be alone for long…."

"Yes, but we can continue this conversation tonight." Smiling now – as much at his intent as his actual actions – she stepped away from his embrace. "What do you think? Does it sound like it might work?"

"They've tried synthesizing dilithium before –"

"Without much success," finished Gary Randleman as he entered Engineering. "You wanted to see me, Commander?"

"Yes," said B'Elanna. "I need your opinion on this setup."

He stepped to the console and scanned through a couple of cycles. "It's a good idea, ma'am, but it would take a couple thousand years to work. At minimum."

"A couple thousand  _years_?"

"Forming the crystals takes heat, pressure and time. All three. That's what the problem was in the earlier synthesis attempts. The scientists couldn't find a way around the time factor."

"Not another temporal problem," muttered Tom from behind them. "Where's Seven when you need her?"

B'Elanna turned to look at him. "What was that?"

"Uh, nothing," he stammered. "Just a smart comment."

"Maybe  _really_  smart," she answered. "Randleman? What if we could make some sort of a temporal bubble? Would it speed up the process?"

"I don't know if it's been tried," he answered. "I'm not an expert on temporal mechanics. But I could see it working."

B'Elanna tapped her commbadge. "Torres to Seven of Nine."

#

Kathryn Janeway looked up at the sound of the door chime. "Come in."

The ready room door slid aside to reveal Chakotay with a couple of padds in his hand. "Care for some company?"

She waved at the padds. "Only if that's good news."

"It might be," he answered, handing one of them to her. "B'Elanna and Seven have set up something interesting. They're developing a mechanism for a temporal bubble to try and synthesize dilithium. They say they might be ready to try it as early as tomorrow morning."

She looked at the padd. "An interesting theory. I can't think of a time we've ever attempted to actually construct one of those. Do you think they'll succeed?"

"I'm willing to believe they might. It certainly would make a lot of things easier."

"What's on the other padd?"

"The schematics on the neural transducers." He handed this one over more slowly. "The Doctor was hoping to find out how well they were working."

She dropped her gaze before silently taking it from his hand.

 _Oh, no_ , thought Chakotay. "Captain? Something wrong?"

She hesitated a long time before answering. "I think I may have gotten my hopes up too high."

"Are they not working?"

"No, they're functioning as designed." Her eyes met his again. "You knew about them before this morning, didn't you?"

It was his turn to drop his gaze. "Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me you were working on it?"

" _I_  wasn't. Some of B'Elanna's staff did the engineering parts of it."

"That's not answering the question."

He sighed. "At first we didn't know if they'd restore  _any_  functionality. That's why nobody said anything. It was my decision."

"To avoid getting my hopes up?"

"Yes," he admitted. "And it seems that happened anyway. I'm sorry they didn't work, Kathryn."

"I just told you they did."

"Then what's wrong? Can you still not walk?"

She shrugged. "Mostly. I'll need practice, especially with keeping my balance, but I may eventually stop stumbling."

"What does 'mostly' mean, then?"

She made a frustrated gesture with her hands. "It's  _jerky_ , not natural. And there's no way that I'll ever be able to run, or climb, or…" she trailed off, visibly fighting tears. "Damn it. This is making me weepy, when what I ought to be is grateful."

"Not necessarily. You're going through a pretty big trauma –"

" _Stop that!"_

Silence stretched between them. She finally took a deep breath and met his eyes again. "I'm sorry. You're just trying to be supportive and understanding. The neural transducers are working fine, Commander. Thank you."

His eyes searched her face for a long time before he turned and left.


	4. Chapter 4

"You seem to be acclimating well. I don't see any signs of infection or rejection at the neural transducers' installation sites."

"Good," said Kathryn into a bio-bed pillow. "Does that mean I can sit up now?"

"Of course," answered the Doctor, offering a hand as she rolled into a sitting position with her legs dangling from the side of the bed. "I wanted to ask you how well they're working."

"Fine," she answered. It had been a long night, and she was anxious to finish here and get up to the bridge.

"You should know," he said, with his tone completely unchanged, "that I've already heard from Commander Chakotay."

 _Damn_ , she thought. "What did he tell you?"

"Apparently you didn't think they were working 'fine' last night."

She sighed. "I was tired and frustrated, that's all. I was hoping the neural transducers would completely give me my legs back, but you'd warned me that it might only get to eighty-five or ninety percent of full functionality. As far as I can tell, that's happened, and I really just needed a good night's sleep."

"According to my exam, you barely slept at all last night."

He was still speaking lightly, conversationally, but she wasn't even close to fooled. She felt her own features freeze in place. "Your examination must be incorrect."

"Captain, I've been treating you for ten years now. I know what your personal biochemistry looks like. As well as your emotional tendencies."

"If you've been treating me for ten years," she replied, not bothering to hide the edge her voice took on, "then you should also know I'm perfectly capable of handling my emotional health without your interference."

He didn't attempt to argue that point. "Then you admit you didn't sleep well last night?"

"This conversation is over," she snapped, pushing herself to her feet. She was annoyed at the soft shuffle of her steps as she walked toward the sickbay doors. It'd be far more effective if she could accomplish the stalk she had in mind.

"Captain, wait," said the Doctor, his tone finally changing. "There's something else I had wanted to show you."

"Unless it's urgent, we can discuss it later."

"I believe it may  _be_  urgent. I might have found an alternative treatment for your injury, one that could bring you back to full capabilities." He paused. "But it would need to begin within the next couple of days to be sure of any effectiveness."

She stopped and turned around, gesturing for him to continue. But she kept the glare she knew was on her face in full force.

#

"Well, this certainly looks ambitious," observed Neelix as he walked around the newly-installed apparatus in engineering. "What is it?"

Seven spared him a brief glance, but nothing more as she finished checking the safety interlocks. "We are attempting to intentionally construct a temporal bubble in order to address the time factor issue related to synthesizing dilithium."

"That's a pretty big concept." He set down the tray of food he'd brought her and came closer. "How do you know it won't be a problem?"

"We'll know we're successful if we are able to synthesize the crystals."

"That's not what I meant." Despite the fact that it was still dark, he peered into the monitor. The heat and pressure would create too strong of a glare for unfiltered viewing. "How do you know this won't end up making things worse instead of better? You're trying to intentionally create something we often try to avoid."

She paused and looked at him again. "Avoid?"

"Temporal anomalies haven't tended to be good for  _Voyager_."

"We are installing numerous safety protocols. In fact, those components are the ones I am currently finalizing."

"Ah," he answered, though he didn't sound convinced. "All the same, maybe you should let the doctor know when you're getting ready to start the experiment."

#

There was still nothing useful in the planetary surveys. B'Elanna and Seven were getting ready to play with, of all things, temporal physics in engineering. In addition, he'd slept poorly the night before, waking up several times from dreams he knew carried significance but couldn't quite remember.

Kathryn hadn't yet come to the bridge. It was still before the start of her shift, but she was early nearly every morning. Knowing her, this meant there was something going on.

Chakotay pinched the bridge of his nose. He'd only been on duty for an hour himself, yet it was already shaping into a less-than-ideal day. A headache was starting to threaten.

The chime sounded, making him jump and causing him to spill his coffee. "Come in!" he yelled harshly as he started mopping up the mess.

B'Elanna stepped into his office, but only as far as necessary to allow the door to close. "That didn't sound very inviting."

"Sorry," he said, more gently but with no real remorse. "Good morning, B'Elanna. Come on in. I promise not to bite your head off again."

She raised her eyebrows but kept her voice neutral as she laid a couple of padds on the desk. "Morning reports from engineering. We're running a little behind on the temporal bubble, but we should be ready to initiate it late this morning. Want to come take a look?"

He took the padds and scanned them absently. "Maybe later."

" _Maybe later?"_  she repeated. "But you've been so excited! Don't tell me you're having second thoughts the way Neelix is."

"Neelix?"

"Apparently he and Seven had some sort of a conversation. She insisted on installing some additional shielding around the apparatus."

"Then you certainly don't need me there yet, do you?" he asked, annoyance creeping into his voice. He got up and took the soiled towel to the disposal. "What's the matter, anyway? Did you get up on the wrong side of bed this morning?"

Her eyes narrowed, and her voice took on a sarcastic tone. "I apologize for my outburst. It was certainly out of line."

He sat back down and pulled more padds in front of him, though the words on them seemed to blur together in front of his eyes. "Don't worry about it. Let me know how it turns out."

"Aye, sir." She stood there for a moment, studying him until he looked up again.

"Dismissed," he said, softly but with a subtle emphasis.

She strode out of the office, irritation plain in her stance. Chakotay sighed and thought about headache remedies. Strong ones.

#

"I was going over the database and came upon some research from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Apparently, mice with spinal cord injuries like yours actually re-grew the nerves when the researchers caused specific sciatic nerve injuries. But it only worked within the first week of the injury."

Sighing, Kathryn walked back over to the bio-bed. "Why didn't you bring this up until now?"

"The researchers couldn't find any sort of a scientific explanation," replied the doctor, "and given that, the scientists were hesitant to continue developing a therapy that involved causing damage to repair damage. It wasn't logical."

"Just how much harm can damage to the sciatic nerve cause?"

He handed her a padd. "As you can see, a considerable amount. I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea myself, but I feel like I should bring it to your attention."

She scanned through the information. "I appreciate your concerns. But I'd like you to try this."

"This is only experimental. I can't guarantee it will help. I can't even guarantee it won't cause additional harm."

"I'll take full responsibility for the decision."

He still seemed to hesitate.

"Would it be easier if I made this an order?"

"No, Captain," the Doctor said quickly, recovering his aplomb. "I just hadn't expected you to make the decision so quickly. I'll begin the setup now. You might want to call the bridge."

"Call the bridge?"

"You'll be off-duty today, and possibly tomorrow. I want you to stay here so I can watch for any adverse affects and take immediate action if they develop."

She started to object, but then heard his words again.  _I can't even guarantee it won't cause additional harm._

Kathryn tapped her commbadge instead. "Janeway to bridge."

#

B'Elanna Torres stalked into the section of Engineering where they were set up. "Report."

Seven of Nine looked up sharply and seemed about to make a comment about the hostility in her stance, but Gary Randleman decided he didn't want to be in the same room as a conflict between these two women – especially not right now.

He jumped in quickly. "We're ready to begin, Commander. At your pleasure."

"Don't wait for me," she snapped. "Go ahead and get started."

Gary secured the apparatus and joined Seven behind the protective shielding, activating his half of the monitor. B'Elanna stepped further away, donning protective goggles but not moving behind the shielding. He supposed she wanted a better view – the shielding did create some distortion – but it made him uneasy.

"Activating the temporal bubble," announced Seven. Her hands played across the console. "Begin increasing heat and pressure."

"Increasing heat and pressure, aye," he responded, watching his own readouts closely. In the back of his mind, he wondered what had caused the chief engineer's irritation, but he squelched the thought. Since he couldn't exactly order her behind the shielding, this line of thought was an unnecessary distraction.

Even though he forced himself to concentrate, he still almost missed the sudden jump in numbers on his monitor. "Red line on the pressure gradient! Commander, watch out!"

She turned toward him. "What –" And then there was a horrendous explosion.

#

He was taller, he had longer legs, and his chair was closer to the turbolift. But Chakotay still found himself running to keep up with Tom Paris' sprint in that direction. The younger man had barely remembered to call for backup before leaving his post.

Chakotay couldn't blame him, though, as he remembered his own mad dash for sickbay a few days earlier, when he got the call about Kathryn.

Tom's impatient fidgeting, though, made the turbolift ride seem longer. "Calm down," he finally said. "The doctor says it's not critical."

"Yeah, well, it isn't  _his_  wife that's hurt. Or yours, either."

"All you're doing is upsetting yourself. That's not going to help B'Elanna!"

Tom probably didn't even notice he had clenched his fists. "All due respect,  _sir_ , but you can deal with stress your way and I'll deal with it my way. I can't sit on the bridge and scowl like you've been doing all morning."

He started to scold the younger man about his tone of voice, but shut his mouth before saying anything. Much as Chakotay hated to admit it, Tom was right. As for the attitude? Well, at least it wasn't over something unimportant.

 _And is_ my _bad mood really that obvious?_  he wondered. He remembered the look on B'Elanna's face as she'd left his office.

The lift finally stopped and Tom was through the doors before they had completely opened. Chakotay used a quick pace himself, but the sickbay doors still had to re-open for him.

He felt the color draining from his face. Even though he'd known Kathryn was in sickbay, he hadn't been prepared for the sight of her lying as still has she had a few days ago, this time on her stomach with a surgical arch over her. The doctor was standing over her, though he didn't seem to be moving.

Ensign Shenith, who had trained as an additional backup medic a few years after Tom Paris, was tending to B'Elanna as she perched on the edge of another bio-bed. He stepped toward them. "How are you doing?"

"I've had better days."

"What happened?"

"The experiment," answered B'Elanna shortly, hissing softly as Shenith applied a dermal regenerator to one hand. "Everything seemed to start out fine, but then – boom – the whole thing blew. I woke up against the wall."

"Are you okay?"

"I think so. Shenith?"

"You have a mild concussion and several first- and second-degree burns," answered the medic. "It isn't too serious, but it will take you a little while to recover."

"Great. This day just keeps getting better and better."

"Do you have any idea what caused the accident?" asked Chakotay.

"No," answered B'Elanna, seeming to deflate. "But the last thing I heard before the emergency transport was Seven calling Tuvok to the lab."

"That's odd," commented Tom. "I wonder why she'd need security in order to investigate a temporal anomaly."

#

"There must be some factor, however small, that you failed to consider when designing the experiment," insisted Tuvok.

"I certainly can't think of one," snapped Seven. She realized she had acquired the bad mood that seemed to be going around today. She glanced at Gary, who shrugged. "That is why I requested your assistance."

"Then let us begin at the beginning. Were there any readings that were even slightly anomalous during the planetary survey?"

"No," answered Seven.

"Yes," answered Gary at the same time.

Tuvok raised an eyebrow as he looked from one to the other.

"There were no anomalies of any relevance," she amended. "There was nothing to suggest the possibility of this particular outcome. Even Lieutenant Randleman agreed with that assessment." She shifted her gaze to the geologist, who flushed slightly.

"Lieutenant Randleman," said Tuvok, "will you describe the anomalies?"

"Aside of the warped lattice structure in the crystals themselves, we found some unusual phenomena in the planetary crust. It looks like there's been no geological activity for a few million years. That's so rare it's considered statistically impossible." He paused and looked at Seven. "We also found fossilized evidence of a sentient race."

"A  _possible_  sentient race. There was no evidence of civilization."

"They had burial rituals," he argued. "That clearly implies self-awareness."

Tuvok appeared intrigued. "Was there any indication of the fate of this…civilization?"

"Nothing," said Gary. "The only thing I could find was that the most recent of the fossils date from about the same time as the last geological activity."

"Fascinating. Was there evidence of a cataclysmic event or similar cause?"

"Not that I could find, sir."

"I fail to understand the relevance of this line of inquiry," said Seven, her irritation now plain in her voice. "There is no organic or fossilized material in the dilithium crystals.  _They_  are the subject of this experiment."

"We should eliminate every possibility, no matter how remote," replied Tuvok evenly. "Computer, run a deep-level subatomic scan of the dilithium shards."

Even Seven's eyes widened when she saw the results.

#

It hadn't taken long to treat Lieutenant Commander Torres; Shenith was a competent medic. While the Doctor had maintained an awareness of the activities while she was treated, he kept the majority of his focus on the patient before him.

Despite the contradiction inherent in its idea, the procedure seemed to be going extremely well. He'd already detected growth in the severed portions of the captain's spinal column, although it wasn't anywhere near sufficient to make a difference in motor capabilities.

He didn't look up when he heard Commander Chakotay come up beside him, but he became curious when the other man didn't speak for several minutes. "You're not disturbing anything critical, Commander. I'm simply monitoring right now. Do you want a status update?"

"If you can give me one that I'll understand." He gestured at the surgical arch. "I'm not sure exactly what's going on here."

"I found references to an experimental procedure that showed some promise, but it had been discontinued before it got to the human trial stage, because there was no scientific explanation for the results. The captain asked me to try it anyway."

"No scientific explanation?"

"It involved  _causing_  damage to  _repair_  damage. I wasn't entirely sanguine about it myself, but the captain's behavior has been…" the Doctor trailed off.

"Erratic," finished Chakotay. That wasn't quite the word the Doctor would have chosen, but it wasn't an inaccurate description. "Is it working?"

"It's too early to tell whether it was successful. I don't believe it has failed, though."

"That's good." He laid a hand on the arch. "When will you know?"

The Doctor sighed. "I'm not certain. But I'm bringing her out of the anesthesia in a couple of hours regardless of result. I'm only keeping her under now in order to keep her completely still. She could potentially re-injure the spine and make things even worse."

Chakotay's eyes came up to meet his. "That's the last thing she needs."

"It's the last thing any of us need," answered the Doctor. He didn't like to contemplate the idea of a captain who had lost even more neurological function than she had before.

#

She woke slowly, finding herself on her back instead of her stomach. "Doctor?"

"He stepped away for a minute," said Chakotay from the side of the bio-bed. "How do you feel?"

"Not sure." Kathryn tried to sit up, but he gently pushed her back down.

"Wait until we know it's safe," he said.

She sighed. "Bad news?"

"Not about the surgery. I just want to be careful."

Her eyes narrowed. "But there's other bad news."

Chakotay looked away briefly and then returned his gaze to her. "We figured out what's going on with the new dilithium crystals."

#

"This probably explains, Captain, why the dilithium didn't register when we first scanned the planet," explained Gary Randleman in the briefing room. "It's also bad news. The organic matter embedded in the crystals on such a deep sub-atomic level renders them completely unfit for use in matter-antimatter reactions."

"Even if we run them through the filters on the transporter?" she asked.

"Even so," said B'Elanna, looking just as haggard as she felt. "They're not designed to detect or remove material at this deep a level." She sighed. "I suppose I could try to increase the sensitivity, but it'd take several days at the very least."

"Why didn't this show up on our tricorder scans?" asked Harry.

"The organic particles are coated in what appears to be pure selonite," answered Tuvok.

" _Selonite?"_  Kathryn blinked. That would have rendered the organic matter invisible to all but the most sophisticated of scans. It also didn't make much sense.

"Yes, ma'am," said Randleman. "That was the cause of the explosion. Selonite reacts pretty wildly to both heat and pressure."

"Heat and pressure," said Tuvok, "are natural geologic forces. Captain, we believe that this may be a clue regarding the planet's unusual history. If selonite is embedded at such a deep level, it would have caused strong and unpredictable reactions throughout the entire crust."

"Define 'strong and unpredictable.'"

"It could easily include the cessation of activity we've detected, although that would have had to occur after a period of fairly intense cataclysm."

"Could this have happened naturally?" asked Chakotay.

"Yes," said Seven. "But the probability of such an event is extraordinarily small, and we have no evidence of any unusual environmental situation which would create the need for such an adaptation. Such a situation would also preclude any possibility of a sentient civilization."

Randleman rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything.

"This is all very interesting," broke in B'Elanna, "but we don't have time for this. Captain, we had to install our  _very last_  viable crystal yesterday. If we crack another one, we'll completely lose the warp drive. Since we already know that we won't find anything usable here, we should move on as soon as we can."

"I understand the engineering situation," she said softly, "but I don't think we'll be in any danger if we stay another day or two to continue investigating. We may still find something. Tuvok, Seven, Harry, I want you to put together away teams. You'll beam down first thing in the morning. Let's see if we can get some answers."

This time, it was B'Elanna who rolled her eyes.

#

Tom caught B'Elanna by the elbow as she exited the briefing room. "What's wrong?"

She kept her voice low. "You heard me in there. We need new dilithium crystals right away, and the captain wants to go  _investigating –!_ "

"She's done this before, and you haven't been half so upset. What's really wrong?"

B'Elanna shook her head. "I don't know. I've been in a bad mood since this morning, when Chakotay…" she trailed off.

"He certainly hasn't been cheerful today, but none of us has. It's been a bad day all around. Did he come down on you or something?"

"Not exactly." She thought for a moment. "It wasn't pleasant. But I think he may have been upset about something else."

"Maybe it's the captain."

"I don't know, but I don't like it. He doesn't get upset that easily."

Tom leaned his head to the side. "You know, this could be an opportunity."

"An opportunity?"

"Yes. If we'll still be here for a few days, there won't be much to do in Engineering, will there? There certainly won't be a whole lot to do in my department."

She started to laugh. "You're hopeless."

"It'd improve our mood…"

"Okay, I'll admit to that."

He grinned. "Holodeck Two, twenty-one hundred hours."

She grinned back. It would be nice to take a break, and while the new crystal might be their last, it was working perfectly well. "You've got yourself a date."

#

Chakotay lingered in the briefing room after everyone else had gone, noting that Kathryn's face had become drawn and that she wasn't making any move to get up. "You sure you were ready to do something like this so soon?"

"I was when I came in here."

"I take it you aren't now."

She sighed heavily. "I don't think I have the luxury of  _not_  being ready to get back on duty."

"No reason you can't go on light duty for a few days."

"I might consider taking you up on that, but you've already refused to take over command once." The words were bitter; her tone was not.

He leaned on the edge of the table next to her chair. "That was a different request and a different situation. If you want to take it easy for a bit –"

"No, I'm fine. But thank you." She pushed her chair back with her hands and then pressed down on the armrests, but her face abruptly went pale and she collapsed back before she made it an inch out of the chair. "Ow."

He slipped his hands under her arms and helped her to her feet. "You sure you're going to make it back to Sickbay?"

"I'm not going to Sickbay."

"Yes, you are. You're pale and sweating." She was clinging to him for support, too. He brushed a piece of hair away from the side of her face, careful not to give in to the urge to let his fingers linger. "You know, I think we could justify a site-to-site transport."

She shook her head but made no move to step back. "The Doctor says walking is good therapy."

"There's therapy, and there's unnecessarily suffering. Don't do this to yourself."

"I have to. Don't you understand?" Her hands were on his shoulders now, and his were at the small of her back. "I can't just  _sit in a chair_  for the rest of the way home."

Where had that come from? "Nobody's saying you will."

"And you were right not to take command," she continued without pausing. "If I had stepped down, I'd have become nothing more than just an object of pity. Nobody would be able to stand that, least of all me."

"That," he said, voice firming, "is not what would have happened."

"You don't know that."

"Don't I? I'm not sure you're giving the crew enough credit." She was frankly leaning on him now. "Kathryn, I know the Doctor said the surgery was successful, but we still don't know if you'll get back to a hundred percent. You need to take a rest."

"Not if it means  _Voyager_  might not get home. You heard B'Elanna."

"What about there not being any danger in taking a couple days to investigate?" he asked, using her own words from the briefing.

She shot him a venomous look, despite the fact that they were nearly standing in an embrace. "I need to be down there with the landing parties."

"If you try that I  _will_  relieve you of duty."

This time, she started to push at him. "Let me go, damn it. You want me to go to Sickbay? Fine. But I'll walk back there."

"Not a chance." He wrapped one arm tighter, trying to free the other one to activate the comm. "Computer –"

"No!" she hissed. "This is as much for me as it is anyone else!"

He shut up, surprised to hear her admit it, and let her go. Nodding, she pushed off and started for the door, but it only took a few steps before she stopped and held her back, gasping and going even paler. She began to sway.

Chakotay managed to catch her before she fell, but the angle was awkward and he fell to his knees on the floor. "I'm sorry, Kathryn."

The tears in her eyes were starting to spill over. "You're right. I can't do this right now."

He used his thumb to wipe the corner of one of her eyes. "It's okay. 'Right now' doesn't mean forever, and I can handle the landing parties."

"We just don't know how long it will take." Her mood, more mercurial than usual since the accident, had shifted again. He hoped nobody was planning on coming into this briefing room anytime soon. "And that's the bad part."

"I know," he said, trying to sound sympathetic.

She reached up to touch his face then. "You're being very supportive."

He smiled. "I'm trying."

Her hand lingered, and he had to admit that it felt good. Better than he should be thinking about, anyway. "It's getting to you too, isn't it?"

This close to her, he couldn't deny it, but he decided to nod instead of saying anything. He took her hands, pulling her back to a sitting position so that he could help her back to her feet. The least he could do for her ego was allow her to stand through the site-to-site transport.

But she lost her balance and fell against him again, and surprisingly made no move to straighten up herself. "Thank you for letting me lean on you."

"You know you can." He gave in to the impulse to kiss her forehead in support.

It was a mistake, because a second later he found himself kissing her lips. And she was kissing him back. He could taste the salt from her tears, and he knew somewhere inside that the timing for this was  _terrible_ , but for this moment couldn't bring himself to pull away.

She finally did. "Um."

"Yeah," he said, voice shaking. "I think we'd better set up that site-to-site now."


	5. Chapter 5

"I still think we should have waited for the rest of the away team."

"Why?" asked Gary Randleman, not looking up from his scanning. "They need daylight, and they're going to beam down then. We don't need daylight, so why wait?"

Over her hand light, Ensign Sue Brooks frowned. "How about the security of knowing we aren't the only ones down here?"

"We left word in the right places, and we're still in communicator range. But you can go back if you want to."

She shook her head. "Talk about a safety hazard."

But he wasn't listening. He was already moving further down, scanning and examining the rock walls. They'd found this tunnel during a deeper analysis of the crustal features the day before. It seemed to go all the way through the crust and into the planet's upper mantle, and it was completely straight.

Theoretically, that could happen naturally. But the odds were extremely low. Lieutenant Commander Tuvok had insisted on a strong security presence on all further away teams.

Sue broke into a trot to catch up with Gary, who was rapidly moving toward the edge of her vision. He stopped perhaps twenty meters later, scanning a particular patch of wall more intently than the rest. She couldn't see anything different about it. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure. These rock layers are reading much thinner than those up above, and I can't see what's behind them."

"Maybe we ought to call for some backup," she said uneasily.

"No, I think we're okay," he answered, still concentrating on the scans. "I don't think it's dangerous, at least not anymore. If anything, this looks like some kind of door. And –" he focused more intently on one of the indicators. "Is this a touch pad?"

"Doors and touch pads, and you  _don't_  think it's dangerous? Sir –"

But it was too late to stop him from reaching out and pressing a particular spot in the rock. The result was instantaneous: a bright blue beam of light came up behind them, and it caught Gary directly in the back. He crumpled to the ground. As she straightened up from where she'd dropped for cover, Sue could see a char mark and smell burning flesh.

"Lieutenant!" She turned him over; he wasn't breathing. Eyeing the area where the beam had originated, she hit her commbadge. "Brooks to  _Voyager_. Two to beam up,  _right now!_ "

Static was the only reply. They'd passed out of communicator range.

Swearing, she started dragging him back the way they had come, calling for help every few meters. It seemed like hours before she finally got a response, though some part of her knew it was likely only minutes. But they had been critical minutes, and as the transporter beam activated, she had an awful feeling that there had been too many of them.

#

Chakotay danced backward on his feet, looking for an opening. Seeing one, he struck out with a right hook. It wasn't the most elegant of moves, but it didn't lack for grace either.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the most effective of moves either. His holographic opponent had anticipated the move and reacted accordingly. He followed through with a grunt, but still only struck air. Chakotay skipped back again, watching for a countermove.

He almost didn't hear the holodeck doors opening. "Computer, freeze program."

"It's all right," said Tom Paris, who had entered wearing casual clothing and carrying a bottle of wine. "You have a few more minutes yet. I can come back."

Breathing heavily, he asked, "What time is it?"

"Twenty fifty-two hours. My reservation isn't until twenty-one hundred."

Chakotay shook his head. "That's fine, Tom. I should finish up anyway."

"I didn't know you had a reservation ahead of me, or I'd have delayed mine a little."

"I set it up at the last minute." Slipping through the ropes around the boxing ring, he reached for a towel and mopped his face off. "You probably didn't see it when you made yours."

Tom eyed him. "Trying to work off some stress?"

"Something along those lines." He took a long drink of water, put the bottle down, and started to unlace his gloves, shaking his head at Tom's gestured offer of help. "I'm fine."

"If you say so."

He slid one of the gloves off. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that you and the captain stayed in the briefing room for a while after the meeting broke up."

"We had some things to talk about, and there was no real need to go to the ready room since we were both already there."

"Mm-hmm. Was that before or after you decided to do the site-to-site transport back to sickbay?"

His head came up sharply. "Do you have a point, Lieutenant?"

"Just that there seems to have been some unusual stress on you lately."

Chakotay blew his breath out. "That's hardly a secret, what with the captain finally agreeing to go on to light duty for a while. I'm doing two jobs."

"You've done that before." Tom shifted the bottle of wine in his hands so that he could lean against the wall. "There's something more this time. Maybe it's because she's hurt."

He narrowed his eyes.  _Had_  Tom seen or heard something of the briefing room exchange? "I'm not sure that's any of your concern."

"Maybe not," allowed Tom. "But it's also true that almost losing someone can make you realize what is and isn't important."

"She was a long way from dying."

"There are other ways to lose someone." Tom turned slightly, listening. "I think I just heard B'Elanna coming down the hall. Should I have her wait?"

He dropped the gloves on the floor. "No, tell her to come on in. Computer, end program."

He was grateful for the distraction, but as the holodeck doors closed behind him, Chakotay privately admitted that the younger man had a point. Regardless of how well her back injury ultimately healed, Kathryn was going to change. There was no way to avoid it, and no way to avoid the shifts in interpersonal dynamics within the crew that would occur as a result.

 _Not to mention_ , he realized,  _shifts in interpersonal dynamics_ between _the crew_.

He sighed. It was just one more issue to add to the pile that had been growing long before that problematic interlude in the briefing room.

The chirp of the comm system interrupted his thoughts.  _"Doctor to Commander Chakotay."_

He rooted around and found his commbadge in his pocket. "Go ahead."

" _Please report to sickbay immediately."_ The briefest of pauses was his only warning.  _"There's been another accident on the planet."_

#

Kathryn Janeway began shaking with fury when the doctor sighed, shook his head, and closed Randleman's eyes.  _This_  was why they had protocols about away teams.

On the other side of the bio-bed, Ensign Brooks looked miserable. "I should have insisted we call for backup…should have scanned around the area first…"

"He was the senior officer," she snapped, trying to rein in her tone of voice. "He made the decision to beam down in the first place."

"At the very least, I should've checked to see if it was really authorized."

"Stop it, Brooks." The ensign looked up. "There was no way you could've known it was dangerous to go so far underground." Randleman, on the other hand, had presented the briefing about the selonite in the planetary crust. He did know.

Kathryn clenched her hands and took a deep breath. He knew, and he'd beamed down anyway. What had the man been thinking?

The Doctor touched Brooks' elbow. "You're fine, Ensign, but I'd recommend you get some rest. Is there anyone you can call? Lieutenant Ayala, perhaps?" Brooks and Ayala were one of the ship's longer-lasting couples.

She shook her head. "I'm still on duty."

"Rest. That's an order," said Kathryn, her tone more gentle than before. "But the Doctor's right; you shouldn't be alone."

Brooks squared her shoulders. "I'll see if Rick is around."

"Do that. And let me know if I need to speak to Commander Tuvok about releasing him today."

She nodded and left. It took a specific effort for Kathryn to unclench her fists. "This is unacceptable. Whatever mystery is down there killed a member of this crew."

"Not to speak ill of the dead," said the Doctor, "but Randleman's carelessness was a major contributing factor."

"Still." She realized she was still shaking. "I want answers. What could kill with one blast, and why didn't we see it before?"

The sickbay doors parted and Chakotay hurried in, in uniform but with damp hair. She was surprised at her sudden unease, but he showed no indication that he was thinking about what had happened in the briefing room.

Instead, he made a sound of obvious frustration at the sight of the bio-bed. "Oh, damn."

"Did you know he and Brooks had beamed down?"

"Is that what caused this?" He walked up and stood next to them. "No. I wouldn't have authorized it."

"Tuvok wouldn't have either." Kathryn stretched, feeling a twinge in her back but deciding to ignore it. She was technically still on light duty, but there had been a  _death_. "I'm taking him and a security contingent down to the planet to find out what happened."

Both Chakotay and the Doctor went still. The doctor spoke first. "Captain, you're still in intense physical therapy. I can't allow that."

"No arguments. That's an order too."

There was steel in the first officer's reply. "No. I'll go down with them."

"Commander –"

He met her eyes and she could see a subtle change in his expression. "We had this conversation in the briefing room."

She fell silent for a moment, though she could feel her cheeks warm slightly. Taking a sharp breath, she raised her chin. "Are you trying to relieve me of duty?"

"Do I have to?" She wondered if she was imagining the slight hint of intimacy in his tone.

It was on the tip of her tongue.  _Would it be for professional reasons or personal ones?_ But instead of saying that, she sighed again. Now wasn't the time to talk about what had happened at the end of their conversation. "No. But I want hourly reports."

The worst part, she knew, would be the sitting and waiting.

#

"It seems that Lieutenant Randleman was correct," observed Seven with her usual unperturbed tone. But even Tuvok had to admit it was a bit of an understatement. This was the last thing any of them had expected to see.

It had taken about thirty minutes to bypass the security system that the lieutenant had inadvertently triggered with his scanning, and another twenty to actually break the encryption so that they could open the door it had protected.

When it finally slid open –  _slid_  open! – they'd stepped into a chamber that was the complete opposite of anything they'd found on the dry and dusty surface.

They were in what appeared to be an anteroom, as there were several items that bore a strong resemblance to chairs. The chamber was decorated with woven wall hangings and a few glittering items that seemed to be nothing more than sculptures. A light layer of dust covered everything, but it was logical to think that this room could have been here for millions of years.

After all, that was how long it had been since the apparent cataclysm that had affected the rest of the planet.

Under those circumstances, the creators of this room were to be commended for sealing it well enough that only a bit of dust had crept in. Tuvok adjusted his tricorder to take another scan, searching for any evidence that could help them find clues.

The tricorder led him to a flat surface embedded into one of the tables. "This appears to be some sort of computer interface."

Seven appeared by his side. "Likely. But it lacks a power source."

"Can you identify one?"

She looked around. "I doubt anything would still be energized. It is somewhat surprising that this room's lights are even operational."

"Contact Commander Torres," he instructed. "Perhaps you can adapt some of  _Voyager_ 's power cells to compensate."

She nodded and stepped away to touch her commbadge.

"Mister Vulcan?" It was Neelix. Tuvok easily schooled his features; long practice had made it a habit. "Have you noticed this?"

"Noticed what?"

Neelix stepped closer to show him the reading on his tricorder. "There's no selonite in these chambers. We can read everything beyond that door." He pointed to an ornately carved slab that lay on the far side of the chamber. "There's more equipment inside there somewhere."

Tuvok walked toward it with him. There didn't seem to be any additional computerized security, but when he tried to open the door it didn't move. Another quick scan showed a primitive – but quite effective – physical lock.

Whoever had built this door had anticipated attempts involving considerable strength. It took several minutes with a hand phaser to break through, and when they did, there was nothing but a short and nondescript corridor. Another well-barricaded door lay at its end, and they were again forced to use their phasers to open it.

"Someone really didn't want unauthorized people back here," observed Neelix.

 _That much is obvious_ , thought Tuvok, though he didn't verbalize the thought.  _But why?_

The room behind the second door was just as ornate as the room they'd exited, but it was much larger and there were fewer chairs. There was also a large but de-energized console in the middle of the room. Unfortunately, the lights only came up halfway this time, and they were required to use their hand beacons to see into the shadows. Fortunately, the dust hadn't penetrated into this area as significantly as it had in the anteroom.

"That was a waiting room," said Neelix suddenly. "Which led back here to some sort of examination area."

"On what do you base that conclusion?"

The Talaxian flashed his beacon toward the console. "There's an opening where someone could walk to the center of that – contraption." Going closer, he looked at the edges. "And these flat surfaces could allow for scanners of that sort."

"Please use caution," said Tuvok. "There could be additional security protocols."

"Not here," said Neelix. "This room  _is_  a security protocol. Don't you see? It's just like a medical examination area or perhaps an access area."

He had to admit the conclusion was logical, as well as disturbing. This was incredibly tight security. What were the creators of this area attempting to protect?

Seven picked her way back to join them. "Engineering is sending a set of portable power generators to the beam-in location. We should return there so that we can bring them down to this location."

"Agreed," said Tuvok by way of acknowledgment. "However, Mr. Neelix, I would like you to remain here with a security officer."

"What do you want me to do?"

Tuvok circled the room with his own hand beacon. "See if you can identify any further evidence of computerized security lockouts. Do not engage them, but I suspect that whoever built such an elaborate setup would not have settled for simple physical controls after the initial entrance."

#

Kathryn had been on a bio-bed in Sickbay, perched on hands and knees for physical therapy, when Technician Cartwright from phaser control had come in. The Doctor had excused himself to have a low-voiced conversation with the other woman and then led her to the stasis unit with Randleman's body. He'd opened it for her before coming back over.

"I see your 'camel,'" he said, referring to one of the exercises he'd assigned her, and indeed she had flexed her back while watching them. "How about the 'cat?'"

She hunched her shoulders forward and arched her back up, despite the fact that it left her arms shaking a little with exertion. It was a good sign, though, that it no longer actually hurt to put her lower back through its full range of motion.

Now if she could just get that full range of motion back to its previous extent.

"I didn't know Randleman and Cartwright were…involved," she said as she relaxed her back again.

A look of discomfort crossed the Doctor's face. "They didn't keep it any sort of secret," he said, "but they've never really been very obvious about it. It couldn't have developed anyway."

"Why not?"

"Both of them have a spouse and children back on Earth."

Over at the stasis unit, Cartwright had bowed her head and seemed to be saying something, but her stance was steady.

"One more time, Captain, and then we can work on trying to keep your balance."

She sighed and stretched her lower back again, holding it for a count of five, and then hunched it up. "I suppose they aren't the only ones in that situation."

"No." He gestured for her to turn around and sit up. After the exertion of the physical therapy, sitting up straight without assistance wasn't easy. She found herself bracing her hands beside her on the bio-bed.

"Now let's see if you can stand back up." She'd been able to walk for a while now, but not very far and was still having incidents like that need for a site-to-site transport after the briefing. Sliding to her feet, Kathryn managed to stand, but when she tried to take a step pain shot down both legs. She reached out and steadied herself on the side of the bio-bed.

"Hands off the bed, Captain. Try to walk on your own."

She managed three small steps before she seemed to fall forward, catching herself by putting her hands back on the side of the bio-bed. Her back simply could not support the weight of her upper body. "Damn it."

"You're actually doing quite well," he observed, offering her a hypospray for the pain. "I know it hurts, but your range of motion is nearly back to normal. In fact, I think you've gotten to the maximum improvement in that area."

"Which is?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Somewhere between ninety and ninety-five percent. At this point you're just working on muscle tone and strength."

She closed her eyes for a moment, reveling as the pain subsided. But she still had to use the edge of the bio-bed to stay in an upright position. "Will I eventually be able to walk without assistance?"

"Very likely. But right now, I will recommend use of a cane just to keep your balance."

At least it was better than a hover chair, and after the last few minutes she was hardly in any position to argue. She found she was able to walk all the way over to the stasis unit by using the cane the same way she'd used the edge of the bio-bed.

Coming up next to Cartwright, she put a gentle hand on the other woman's shoulder.

"Captain," she acknowledged softly. "Has anyone been assigned to clean out his quarters?"

"No."

"May I do it?" She took a deep breath. "There are some – things in the personal effects that his wife and children probably shouldn't ever see. I'd like to…" she trailed off for a moment. "I'd like to dispose of them. We'd have done it anyway once we got back to Earth."

"I understand," said Kathryn softly. "Of course you can do it."

"Thank you, Captain." Cartwright blinked suddenly, but a tear ran down her face anyway. "It's not something I'm particularly proud about. My husband and son –"

"You were lonely. It's understandable. And I don't think there are any logs about it anywhere." Chakotay could classify or erase anything he found.

"Only in medical records," she answered. "We were careful. We knew it couldn't last."

Kathryn looked up, startled. Was the younger woman really that certain that they'd eventually make it home? After ten years, she had to admit that even she had started to wonder.

Cartwright took a sudden sharp breath. "I know it was wrong, but I don't regret it. He was good to me. I don't know if I could have made it this far without him, so while I know it's selfish, I'm glad he was on  _Voyager_  with us."

That was, thought Kathryn, a worthy epitaph, even if it had to remain unofficial. The crew had only had each other for so many years now; it wasn't surprising that people would seek personal comforts among their professional peers despite the breaches in protocol.

Kathryn sighed. When they'd first launched, she never would have thought that way. But loneliness had become an uncomfortably familiar companion for her as well.

She wasn't going to think about the briefing room, though. Now wasn't the time.

#

Chakotay, who had initially stayed at the beam-in point to coordinate operations, helped them bring the power generators back down into the chambers. He walked slowly around the console in the second room. "Any idea what this is for or how it works?"

"We are not certain of its purpose," replied Tuvok. "But scans show that its operation is managed using a crystal matrix embedded approximately fifteen centimeters below the control surface." He leaned back from where he had been bent over attaching a coupling. "Mr. Neelix believes it is an identity or security scanner of some sort."

"That seems reasonable," he answered, and Neelix beamed from across the room. "Is that why you haven't tried to penetrate any further yet?"

"Yes." Tuvok began working on the coupling again. "It seemed most prudent."

He wandered around the room as they worked, looking to see if there was anything, beyond the console and the opulent décor, that might give them any more clues. The edge of the hand beacon's beam caught on something with a brief flash. Moving closer, he pulled out his tricorder to examine the cuneiform-like patterns.

The lights suddenly came up to full, and a humming sound filled the air. Chakotay turned around to see Seven just stepping back from the console.

"It appears that the main power coupling affects both the lights and this console," she said.

"Good." Chakotay snapped the tricorder closed but didn't put it back in its pouch. "Do you think you can operate this?"

She examined the flat surfaces. "It would take some time to learn the various commands. This is not a technology with which I am familiar. But I believe it's possible."

"Commander," said Tuvok. "It might not be wise to activate the device. I still have not been able to identify the additional security measures, but it defies logic to assume they are not present."

He considered for a moment. "We need those answers, Tuvok."

Seven bent her head toward the control surfaces, working through the various items using a grid search. Tuvok began to assist her. Neelix, whose task had been completed when the power came back online, wandered over to stand beside him. "Any idea what that is?"

"I'm almost positive it's writing, but the Universal Translator hasn't been successful with it. You wouldn't happen to have seen anything similar?"

"On this planet? No." But then Neelix went still. "Commander."

He looked up from re-opening the tricorder to ask what it was, but found there was no need. An image had coalesced in the air between them and the console, blocking the view of Tuvok and Seven. The being was humanoid, but clearly had avian ancestry if the crest of hair – or feathers – that began just above its nose and extended to the back of the head was any indicator.

It raised clawed, three-fingered hands in a universal gesture, and began to speak. Chakotay hurriedly tuned the U.T. in the tricorder for auditory speech.

"– after I have scanned you to confirm your identities, we will proceed to the lower chambers. Please forgive the inconvenience. I'm sure you understand the necessity of these procedures."

"Well," said Chakotay, "there are your additional security protocols, Tuvok."

"Indeed." The Vulcan came around to face the figure. "I'm afraid we do not understand the necessity of these procedures. Would you explain?"

"Of course." Chakotay was aware of a subtle change in the humming sound; they were being scanned. "Unfortunately, this sanctuary cannot hold the entirety of the population. I must determine that you are, in fact, members of those chosen to enter it."

"Why does this sanctuary exist?" asked Chakotay, still taking readings with the tricorder.

"Survival. It will protect its inhabitants while the star-storm rages. Then, when the storm has abated, we will emerge and re-build our civilization to even greater heights than before." The humming stopped. "I am unable to confirm your identities. You must return to the surface."

"Wait," said Chakotay. "Is there anyone else here? We'll return to the surface, but we'd like to talk to them first. About –" he thought for a moment. "About the ways they plan to rebuild."

"I'm afraid not; as you know, time is of the essence. Please return to the surface."

"How long is the star-storm expected to continue?" asked Tuvok.

"We don't know, but we will be monitoring. Please rest assured that, while you will not survive, our culture will remain intact and your memory will be forever honored. Now, I must insist that you leave immediately."

"No," snapped Chakotay. "We're not going anywhere until we have some answers. How long have you been down here?"

The visual part of the projection abruptly snapped off, but the audio continued. "I'm afraid you have left us no choice."

The door from the anteroom slammed behind them and a blue haze began to appear from vents in the ceiling. Tuvok pulled his phaser and aimed at the door, but nothing happened when he squeezed the trigger. The humming in the room gradually became louder, volume increasing until it hurt his ears.

Clutching at their ears and choking on the gas, they lost consciousness. Chakotay's last sight before that happened was a flash of bright light, and seeing all of the controls on the console light up at once.


	6. Chapter 6

"How long has it been now?"

"Two hours, forty-seven minutes," answered Harry Kim from Operations. Kathryn bit back a sigh. It was the third time she'd asked the question, and it was becoming harder and harder to keep the worry and frustration from becoming too obvious.

"Any sign of their commbadges?"

"No, ma'am."

They'd known the commbadge signals wouldn't penetrate through the selonite on the surface – it was part of what had killed Randleman – but Chakotay had maintained the hourly check-in schedule until his last call, when he'd said he was going to go into the chambers that Tuvok's team had found.

 _We'll try to keep up the hourly intervals_ , he'd said.  _But if we have to go too far in, we won't be able to get back out that often. We have to be almost all the way up on the surface before we can get through to_ Voyager _._

 _All right_ , she'd answered,  _I'll give you some time. But don't make it too long._

She'd almost been able to see the smile that quirked at his mouth; after ten years, she'd come to know that he was perfectly aware of double meanings.  _Aye-aye, Captain._

"Captain!" called Harry suddenly, startling her out of her thoughts. "I have their commbadges!"

Two weeks ago, she would have sprung up from the chair to join him at his console. Now, she turned to face him. She was learning to live inside her limits.

"Is that confirmed?" she asked.

"Yes, Captain," said Rollins from Tactical. "The signals are weak, but it is definitely them." He frowned. "I would think they'd be trying to hail us…"

"Hail  _them!_ "

Rollins tried for several minutes, but there was no reply. He finally shook his head. "No response, ma'am, and I've lost the signals again."

Nearly three hours, and now a brief flicker of presence but no check-in. "That's it," she snapped. "Harry, you're with me."

Tom Paris spun around in his chair. "You're going down there?"

"Yes."

"Captain, I don't think –"

"Objection noted. You'll be in command."

" _Captain._ " He was on his feet now. "May I speak with you in the Ready Room?"

"No time, Tom." She didn't really want to hear it anyway, even if it had taken her longer than him to get to her own feet.

"Ma'am." He drew himself up to full attention. "I think I have to insist."

His stance was polite, but his expression was determined to the point of being stubborn. "All right. Five minutes."

She made a point of turning to speak as soon as the doors shut, wanting to get control of the conversation right away. "I know what you're going to say, Tom, but I'm not an invalid."

"I'm not suggesting you are," he answered. "It's just that –"

"You spoke with Chakotay before they beamed down, didn't you? And you agreed not to let me do anything…stupid?"

The trapped look in his eyes told her the answer.

"It's all right, Tom," she said, using his first name deliberately. "I can walk on my own now."

"I know," he said. "But Seven said there's some pretty lousy footing down there. And you're still having balance problems. Not to mention staying off your feet more."

So people were noticing. She looked at him for a long moment and then went to a corner where she picked up her cane. At first, she'd used one that the doctor had given her, but Chakotay had surprised her that morning with another one. This one was wooden with a bright metal tip.

"Will this make you feel better?" she asked.

He sighed and nodded. "I'm sorry. I know it's a breach of protocol to object –"

"No, you did it because you were told to, and not without reason. I could be a liability." That was harder to admit than she was willing to let on, but it was also unfortunately true. "I think we're going to be fine this time, though."

"I hope so," he said. "Captain, please be careful. I'll never hear the end of it if you're hurt."

Kathryn smiled. " _That_  I can do. I'll be okay."

And, she promised herself, she would.

#

He woke to pain in his back and legs, and for a moment had a sickening sense of sympathy for his captain. But a second later, he realized he could move and feel just fine. He was just bruised and sore; he must have been carelessly tossed onto the hard white floor beneath him.

Chakotay sat up. "Tuvok? Seven? Neelix?"

"Here, Commander," said Seven, crouching down next to him. He could see Neelix standing behind her, and Tuvok was across the room, examining a wall that was different from the others. It glittered, like crystal.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"It appears to be a cell of some sort," she answered. She indicated furniture, a fountain of water, and a table upon which was laid something that looked like food. There was also a walled-off alcove near the back which suggested toilet facilities. "It is, however, not uncomfortable."

"That's a matter of opinion," he said, pushing to his feet. But he agreed that it didn't look like a prison cell. It seemed more like a holding area.

After a moment to stretch and soothe his still-complaining muscles, he joined Tuvok at the far wall. He was examining a series of openings that were far too small to allow escape, but did permit a view into the chamber beyond the cell. "How much have you figured out?"

"Only a little. We woke up just a few minutes before you did. Clearly, though, this area is meant to restrain us in some manner."

"As if they meant to keep us from making another attempt to get into the chambers," he said, thinking out loud. "That lends credence to the idea of a security room."

Neelix joined them. "There doesn't seem to be any sort of restraining field." He patted the wall. "It's just this odd quartz-like stuff."

"More like diamonds," said Seven. "Quartz is not as rigid as this material."

Quartz. Diamonds. Something nibbled at the back of Chakotay's mind, but he pushed it aside for the moment. This wasn't the time for scientific speculation. "Do we know what the material is?"

"No."

That was when he realized their tricorders were gone. So were their phasers, but they had their commbadges. He reached up to try his.

"They are not effective," said Tuvok. "Based on the view outside this wall, I believe we're still well below the surface."

"And the selonite deposits. Great." He looked around. "Any thoughts about options?"

"For breaking through  _diamond?_ " asked Neelix.

"Someone put us in here," said Chakotay, "and transporters don't work through selonite any more than commbadges. So that means they likely came in here – and then got themselves out."

#

It was clear that the Away Team had made it this far; Chakotay's tricorder was lying on the floor of the security room. Moving carefully and using the cane for balance, Kathryn picked it up. It was still open and active, suggesting it had been dropped.

"Captain?" asked Harry from across the room. "The power generators are online and this console is powered up, but I can't tell if there was any activity."

"Be careful," she said, opening the tricorder and coughing slightly. The air in the room was more than a bit stale, and had an odd smell. "That could have been whatever happened to them. Chakotay wouldn't have willingly left this behind."

She'd found the tricorder in front of a wall; he'd been working on a translation of the odd writing it bore. The Universal Translator had apparently taken a while, but it had tagged enough words to provide a rough estimate about some of the sentences.

 _Do not engage the -_ , it said, indicating a word that was still untranslatable.  _Instead, request that the - run the last - file. You must do this quickly, before the -._

She paced toward the console in the middle of the room, wondering what its purpose might have been. Off to the side, Harry was carefully trying various commands on the alien console.

"Be careful," she repeated. "These words over here are a warning."

He nodded, but didn't look up from his task. She slowly walked around the room, looking for any more evidence of the Away Team's fate and discovering a phaser in the corner. Its power cell had been completely drained via some artificial means.

This vanished civilization had definitely progressed beyond the primitive level if they could recognize the difference between a scientific instrument and a weapon and only de-energize one of them. She wondered if they'd gotten to space flight.

"Welcome to this Sanctuary," said a new voice behind her. Leaning on the cane for balance again, Kathryn turned around to see an image of a humanoid being behind her. It flickered a little, suggesting a holographic projection.

"You are overdue," it continued, "but not too late. Please remain where you are. After I have scanned you to confirm your identities, we will proceed to the lower chambers. Please forgive the inconvenience –"

 _Do not engage_ , the warning had stated. "Wait," said Kathryn, thinking quickly. "We don't wish to go to the lower chambers."

The projection paused. "Please state your purpose, then."

She glanced at the tricorder again. "Run the last file."

"I need clarification. Last historical recording? Last residency record? Something else?" It was couched in normal speech, but the computer-like nature of the request was clear.

She thought for a moment, noticing absently that Harry had eased around to stand behind her. "What's the last file recorded, of any type?"

The hologram abruptly vanished, and Kathryn looked down at the tricorder again, scanning hurriedly. "Wait," she repeated. What would be the right command to re-start the program?

Another image flickered to life. It appeared to be the same being, but it was now stooped and the rich crest on its head had become sparse. It looked up, and she saw that its eyes had become glazed over with age.

"My name," it said, "is Numinda Claari. You've reached the last Sanctuary of my people, and you've found me – the last of our kind to survive."

#

Seven of Nine frowned slightly, concentrating as she knelt next to the crystalline barrier that restrained them in the holding area. Using the hand that still had Borg implants – and, thus, contained exterior metallic content – she cautiously reached out to tap the wall. It rang slightly, with a much higher tone than would be expected for solid rock, duranium or a similar non-crystalline substance.

Pushing back to her feet, she tried it again further up the wall. The pitch of the tone changed slightly, becoming even higher, but the crystals' echoing effect was still quite obvious. She ran her flesh-covered fingers gently between the two places she'd tapped. There was no discernible change in the substance's feel.

She frowned again. Why, then, would the tone have changed?

"Seven?" It was Commander Chakotay.

"This method of investigation is…" she hesitated. "Crude, but not ineffective. There is some sort of difference in the nature of the crystal as it gets further from the floor."

"Difference?"

She tapped the two different places again but he shook his head. "I don't hear anything."

"There's a forty-megahertz increase in the pitch."

"Only forty? No wonder; I don't have perfect pitch. But it could just be a natural variation."

Seven reached above her head to tap even higher on the wall. This time, even Chakotay could hear the difference in pitch. He leaned back on his heels to study the wall. "Hmm. Do you think the crystal is weaker toward the top?"

"I am unable to determine that," she answered. "It's only indicative of some sort of change in the internal structure."

"Still." He considered the wall for a few more minutes, and she wondered if he could see something she couldn't. Then he shook his head, and she realized he likely hadn't been looking at the wall at all.

It wasn't always easy to tell when other humans were and weren't paying attention.

He removed the commbadge from his uniform, and she frowned again. "Commander? We've already established that those don't function in this environment."

"Yes, they do; they're just not reaching  _Voyager_. But," he continued, prying off the cover, "it occurs to me that if there are different structures in the crystal, it might respond to harmonics. Hand me yours."

She complied, and he began disassembling that one too. "We should be able to cross-circuit these and create some sort of a vibration."

Tuvok had come over to join them. "An interesting theory."

"It's as good as I can come up with at the moment."

Seven thought about this and then started rolling up her sleeve. "We will need a means of controlling the harmonics. Perhaps one of my implants –"

"Won't that hurt you? I thought the doctor removed anything he could."

"The damage will be repairable," she said, thinking that it was also preferable to continued confinement. While the chamber was comfortable, the temperature was lower than optimal, particularly for her. And while the ship was surely looking for them by now, there was no way to tell if they'd ever be able to penetrate the caverns to this level.

Escape was going to be up to them.

#

"Who are –" Kathryn began.

The image of the alien didn't respond or even acknowledge. "Our astronomers," it began, "identified the star-storm in my grandparents' time, though it was not widely accepted until I myself began final studies. The life of a star seems eternal when compared with ours, after all. How, then, could one  _die_?"

"A nova," said Kathryn softly. "That's the end of a star's life cycle." Without taking her eyes off the image, she lifted her tricorder and instructed it to begin scanning through the data they had on the local star systems.

"And if stars are really just collections of burning gases, how could the death of a star not our sun have such an impact on us? Wouldn't the star simply burn itself out the way a fire would?"

Kathryn had done her doctoral research on a type of stellar remnant, so she knew the answer to that. From the stance of the person in the image, he or she likely knew the answer as well: no. Novae could cause upheavals for a long way before their shock waves dissipated.

The tricorder beeped softly. It had found a match. Three million years ago, there had been a nova about seventy light years away.

"By the time I finished my adult's training," the image continued. "the effects had become discernible. Our skies danced with color, even during the day, and compasses had become unreliable. It was about this time that our people began to fragment.

"One faction – mine – realized that it had already been far too late to save our entire population even had we begun work in our grandparents' time. But it wasn't too late to save our civilization. We began quietly assembling knowledge and preparing these Sanctuaries. We knew we had to work in secret, because there would eventually come a time when we, as a people, had to decide who specifically would survive and who would not."

The person in the image paused for a long moment, and its eyes briefly became distant. "But it was inevitable that word would eventually get out. I'm not sure who was more surprised: our society as a whole, or those of us who'd already begun preparations.

"Because not everyone wanted a place here."

Out of the corner of her eye, Kathryn could see that Harry was just as captivated as she was.

"Some, of course, maintained their denial of the situation even as our world itself began to turn on us. Others speculated that the Sanctuary movement, as we had come to be called, would be simply a gathering of the elite. They also questioned whether life in the caves below the surface would be a life worth living.

"It was a difficult time, and differences of opinion ran high. We split and fractured, friend against friend, parent against child, even brother against sister." The image paused again and took a sharp breath. Its voice dropped to a whisper of pain. "Even brother against sister.

"My own brother, Numinda Saan, believed that the Sanctuary movement was a pointless and futile exercise. He insisted that our time had simply come and that acceptance was the better path. It was simply fate. Of course I disagreed.

"But I also digress." The speaker – who was a sister, Kathryn realized with a pang – took a long, steadying breath. "Needless to say, our world dissolved into near-madness, and extensive security became necessary within the Sanctuaries. But we accomplished our goal: a massive collection of knowledge and preservation of a sufficient number of people to provide the genetic diversity we'd need to rebuild our population once the star-storm passed.

"We didn't count on the effects of the star-storm rendering our world nearly uninhabitable. Nor did we realize that the protection from the rock layers was incomplete. The radiation didn't kill us the way it did those on the surface. But it did render all of the females infertile.

"We didn't escape our fate. We only prolonged it." The woman's crest was completely flat by now. "But I reached my goal. I was the foremost proponent of the Sanctuary movement, and I've survived until the end of my normal life expectancy.

"I'm old, and I will not live much longer. But I have lived long enough to see the end of my people, and realize that my brother was right. It might have been fate, or a terrible random coincidence, but acceptance was a far healthier reaction than a futile fight against the limits of time and fate.

"That," concluded the image of Numinda Claari, "only results in bitterness and regret."

The image flickered and died, and Kathryn realized she had tears in her eyes. She blinked them away before Harry could see. "Lieutenant, can you access the database?"

"I couldn't before. There were too many safeguards." But he tried the console again. "They're gone now, Captain."

Neither of them, she realized, were surprised.

#

"Ready?" asked Neelix.

"As ready as I think I'll be," answered Chakotay. "Tuvok? Seven?"

"Preparations are complete," answered Seven.

Tuvok nodded. "There is nothing left now but to make the attempt."

"Okay." Chakotay bent over their makeshift radio and touched a slender wire to two points, completing an electrical circuit. With a jerk, it began to hum. Neelix took the bottom of it and they moved it over toward the weakest part of the wall – an area near one of the openings – together. Chakotay was careful not to let the circuit break back open.

As they'd hoped, the edge of the opening began to vibrate fractionally. Seven placed two fingers against it. "It is reacting in sync with the harmonic frequency."

"Let's hope it's the right frequency," he answered.

The hum continued, with no visible effects, for some time. Chakotay felt his hands beginning to shake, and Neelix' face was starting to show evidence of his effort as well. Tuvok, watching them, came over and slid his hands underneath the apparatus.

With a sigh, Neelix let go and rubbed his hands. "Thanks, Mister Vulcan. I'll just need a minute."

"Logic indicates we should share the burden."

In response, Seven reached over with her free hand toward the wire but Chakotay shook his head. "I'm fine. Is there any change to the vibration?"

She frowned briefly in concentration. "I am not able to perceive a change. But it's possible that it is too subtle for me to recognize it using this rather crude manner."

"We'll keep trying."

Several minutes later, there was no change except that the hum had become softer. "I think we may be running out of power."

"The power cell is limited," answered Tuvok, who had since relinquished his burden back to Neelix. "We have no way of telling how fast we are drawing from it."

"Seven?"

"I still do not detect any difference."

"Okay, then, well, we shouldn't run the power cell completely out." He disconnected the wire with a flick, and the apparatus fell silent. Neelix lowered it to the floor with a sigh of relief. "Any other ideas?"

They looked at each other, but nobody spoke. Chakotay tried not to admit that an edge of despair was forming in his mind. Would they be found?  _Could_  they be?

#

Tuvok frowned. They'd been brainstorming new solutions for approximately fifty-six minutes if he included the periods of silence when nobody on the Away Team could think of something new. It was imperative that they develop a means of escape, however. If nothing else, the food supply in these abandoned caverns must be finite.

He had no intention of starving to death, though he knew that might still be a possibility if  _Voyager_  couldn't find a source of dilithium crystals soon.

"Perhaps," he said into the most recent spate of quiet, "we should wait for our captors to return and determine their method for entering and exiting this holding cell."

"But they might never come back!" retorted Neelix, and Tuvok had to suppress a grimace at the Talaxian's vociferous emotionalism. "It's been at least six hours, and they haven't come to check on us yet."

"The day here is longer than a day on Earth," he countered. "It's possible an appropriate interval, in the aliens' eyes, simply has not yet passed."

"At the same time, it's  _logical_  to think that they'd know about when we would wake up."

"Not necessarily."

"Oh? How do you figure that?"

But he didn't respond. He had realized that the faint tapping sound he'd identified some three point eight minutes ago was getting louder, and had taken on the rhythm similar to, but not quite the same as, human or Vulcan footsteps. "Mr. Neelix, this argument is pointless. It may also be moot in just a few minutes."

Chakotay joined him at the opening he'd chosen. "Do you hear something?"

"Yes." He lapsed into more silence to concentrate. "It is similar to footsteps, but there are also some differences –"

"Perhaps it's the way the aliens walk." The first officer turned back around and gestured for Seven to sweep away the evidence of their earlier attempts to escape. "Look sharp."

She hastily began to work. Neelix crossed over to the table to assist.

_Tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-tap._

The slow speed at which the aliens approached was almost maddening. At the same time, he reflected, this phenomenon could also be indicative of the possibility he'd heard them from some distance off. That suggested that the crystalline walls extended for some difference.

Chakotay was also listening, and he straightened suddenly. "You're right. Not quite footsteps. I think that's someone walking with a cane."

"A cane?" He was Vulcan; he would not allow his hopes to rise. But it was unlikely that the aliens, even if they were still present, would be making use of such items.

"Yes." From the other man's demeanor, Tuvok understood that he wasn't the only one who had thought about someone who  _would_  be using a cane.

Although he was aware that barely an additional minute passed, it still seemed like an interminable time before the approaching persons came around a corner. Chakotay pressed himself against the opening. "Captain! It is you!"

"Finally." She stopped, face betraying exhaustion, and leaned heavily on the cane. "The schematics didn't tell us how far down this place was."

"Schematics?" asked Tuvok.

"Yes. They were stored in the security room's database."

"How were you able to access them?"

She hefted the tricorder. "The translation matrix finally locked on to those words on the wall. They were instructions for bypassing the security systems."

"Did the information in the database include the method for releasing the occupants of these…" Tuvok looked around, searching for the best description "…holding cells?"

"Yeah," said Lieutenant Kim, who had accompanied the captain. He tapped commands into the tricorder. "It'll just take me a minute to find them – whoa. Wait a minute."

"Lieutenant?" asked the captain.

He wordlessly handed the tricorder to her, and her eyes widened.

"This wall," she said, voice not quite even, "is made out of dilithium.  _Pure_  dilithium."

#

"I think I can use it," said B'Elanna as she examined the now-shattered remains of the wall. "The lattice structure is normal. But I'd like to take a few samples up and test them before we spend too much effort getting all this out of here."

"Agreed," answered Kathryn, and the chief engineer began collecting them.

The current theory was that the radiation and upheaval from the nova had affected the surface too greatly for any of the dilithium in the crust to be useful. But here, only slightly above the planet's Mohorovičić discontinuity, they'd finally gotten deep enough that the rock had stopped the effects.

She stood in awe of the planet's long-dead civilization. Creating a livable space so deep within the crust was quite the feat of engineering; Earth's own Moho was uninhabitable for humans without full-time refrigeration and stabilizing force fields.

Of course, this planet's boundary was much higher than Earth's.

Chakotay joined her. "I'm having the team take archaeological scans. These people were fascinating; it seems the majority of their technology was based on the use of crystalline structures. That could explain at least part of how they were able to do this." He gestured to the walls around them.

"We certainly have a lot to learn from them," she answered. "If B'Elanna is able to adapt the dilithium, it'll take a few days to mine enough to build up our supplies. That's enough time to do some studies."

"Randleman would have been perfect for that," he answered quietly. "I'll find his notes and bring down some people from the science team."

"Good," she answered. "I'll be joining them."

He sighed audibly. "You should know that I've already spoken with Tom."

Kathryn frowned. "Don't start, Commander."

"I'd be remiss if I didn't. How long did it take you to get down here from the surface?"

She shook her head. "It's not relevant. We were running a search; that always takes more time than going straight to a location."

He met her eyes. "How much longer?"

 _But I'm the captain_ , she almost said, but a part of her realized that she'd already become defensive. She broke eye contact to begin studying the tricorder readings again.

"I'm glad you're the one who found the dilithium," he said, and she blinked at the apparent change of subject. "It's only fair, considering what it took from you."

Kathryn looked up.

"It cost you part of the use of your legs, and Randleman's family will deserve whatever answers we find in the survey. And I'm not insensitive to the fact that we'd have been trapped much longer if you hadn't come down." He sighed again. "But I think you know as well as I do what could have happened if you'd run into more trouble."

She hadn't considered that. "I suppose you're right."

Chakotay met and held her gaze again. "There's no shame in admitting that you have some restrictions. Everyone does, even me."

She remembered Numinda Claari's words.  _Acceptance is a far healthier reaction than a futile fight against the limits of time and fate. That only results in bitterness and regret._

It seemed this planet had other lessons for her as well.

"All right," she said quietly. "But that means I'm going to ask  _you_  to help me get back up to the beam-out point."

He chuckled and held out an arm. She took it, realizing that things felt almost normal again. Maybe the incident in the briefing room had been just an aberration.

 _Or_ , she reflected, thinking of long-dead alien's conclusions,  _maybe it was a message_.


	7. Conclusion

"Exploration is as much about the practical as the wondrous. That's what Gary Randleman told me when he first requested a transfer to  _Voyager_. He wanted to know more about the galaxy, but he also had a number of skills that could be simply useful."

Kathryn paused, looking around the cargo bay at the faces of those who'd gathered for the funeral. Nearly all of the crew were present.

Taking a breath, she continued. "That came in handy after we were tossed into the Delta Quadrant. Lieutenant Randleman volunteered for a reassignment to Engineering, but he never lost his spirit for exploration. He was happy when he was assigned to help us survey the planet we still orbit.

"Nobody expected that this mission and his desire to know more would lead him into a trap that cost him his life. Yet before that happened, he identified critical information that helped us solve one of  _Voyager_ 's most pressing practical problems in addition to helping us learn more about the planet and the people it once held.

"Because he was a geologist, Lieutenant Randleman requested burial on a planet instead of in space. It's fitting, then," she concluded, "that we will honor him with a burial on the planet where he made his final sacrifice. We will also know this world, going forward, as Randleman's Planet."

Across from Kathryn, Technician Cartwright straightened and nodded. She'd told the other woman that Randleman's will stated a preference for a burial planet-side. But she hadn't had time to share the decision on naming the planet; the database search for potential naming conflicts had only ended a few minutes before the service.

Beside her, Chakotay called the crew to attention and honors before dismissing everyone from the funeral. As the gathering ended, Kathryn signaled for Cartwright to wait at the door.

"Tammy," she said gently when she'd made her way over. "Engineering's sending a shuttle and crew to do the actual burial. They're going down tonight. Would you like to be included? Off the record?"

Cartwright took a sharp breath, but while tears rolled down her face her voice was steady. "Yes, Captain. I'd like that very much."

#

B'Elanna and Seven met them in Engineering when they got back from the surface. B'Elanna wasn't even trying to hide the very un-Klingon like smile on her face. "The tests on the Sanctuary site's dilithium were successful. We ran it all the way up to 120% power and the readings didn't even fluctuate."

"That's good news," said Chakotay from beside Kathryn. "How much will you need? Is there enough at the site?"

"Yes, and it gets better." She exchanged a glance with Seven. "Some of it is already mined and cut. We don't even need to prime it. The rest won't take that long to prepare."

"You said you found enough," said Kathryn. "Enough for what? To get us home?"

"Home and back. We're clearing cargo bay space now, and there's no more need for us to worry about how we can jerry-rig the crystals with selonite intrusions."

"That may actually be a positive development," added Seven. "After further examination, I believe the selonite-encased organic particles may have been deliberately injected."

" _Deliberately?_ " asked Chakotay, exchanging a glance with Kathryn.

"A form of computerized memory. The aliens' technology was heavily dependent on crystalline technology, and the organic particles themselves bear a strong resemblance to  _Voyager_ 's own neural gel packs." Seven paused. "I would like to study them further."

B'Elanna's eyes were bright. "Investigate away. We have more than enough to spare now."

"Permission granted," said Kathryn. "Get a good-sized sample before we leave. It might be the only way there will ever be a record that this civilization existed."

"Yes, Captain."

"It won't be the only record," said Chakotay as they left, exiting into the corridor. " _Voyager_  already has sensor readings and the records we collected from the Sanctuary computer."

"Those are primarily the observations of a single individual. The viewpoint is biased."

He glanced over at her and quirked an eyebrow. "I doubt she'd be the only one. After all, you left part of yourself there too."

Kathryn sighed. "Not just me," she said softly. "We're going to need to keep an eye on Cartwright. She might feel too inhibited to participate in grief counseling, given the exact nature of that relationship."

"I've already spoken to the Doctor about keeping it out of the official records. Sometimes we have to…bend the rules a little."

She stopped to look at him and catch her breath. Walking long distances was still an effort, though she knew she would be able to do it in time. "Protocols exist for a  _reason_ , Commander. If Randleman had followed them –"

"If Randleman had followed protocol, we might not have ever found the Sanctuary at all. Or the dilithium. Are you really going to take that position now?"

"I have to." She took a step, intending to head toward the Bridge.

Chakotay stayed still, his voice tightening. "Kathryn. If the Doctor had followed protocol, you still might not be able to walk."

She had to make an effort to avoid raising her voice. "That was different."

"Is it? Or are you just justifying it because of the outcome?"

That wasn't fair. She decided not to validate that with a reply, instead starting down the corridor. After a moment, he followed. They were silent until they got to the turbolift.

"I'm sorry," he finally said quietly, avoiding her eyes. "Forget I ever said that."

Perhaps it was the tired defeat she heard in his tone, or perhaps it was the memory of the incident in the briefing room. But she couldn't let that go unanswered. "Computer, hold lift."

Chakotay's eyes flicked up. "Captain?"

"That's not the first time you've tried to convince me that we need to relax some of the rules," she said. "Why is that?"

He took a long breath. "Ten years, Kathryn. We've been out here ten years, and we're still looking at perhaps another ten before we get home. That's a long time to try and maintain strict shipboard discipline, day in and day out."

"You make it sound arbitrary and artificial."

"Some of the rules and regulations  _are_  artificial," he answered. "That doesn't mean they're not good ideas, but it does mean that we shouldn't blindly observe them." He made a vague gesture. "Look at Randleman and Cartwright. They knew they were breaking the rules. That's why decided at the very beginning that what happened on  _Voyager_  would stay on  _Voyager_."

"Are you suggesting we should allow..." she trailed off, trying to think of the best way to phrase what she was thinking. "That we should just allow the crew to do as they please? Randleman's family certainly wouldn't agree with that idea."

"I'm not talking about the safety regulations. What I'm suggesting is that, when safety's not compromised, we consider things case by case. Some things would cause too many problems." He paused, and when he continued his voice was softer. "But some things might not, especially if we're careful. They might even do some good."

This time, she was the one who met his eyes, and she knew he was thinking about the briefing room too. She took a long breath. "I have to ask. Are you bringing this up because of professional concerns or personal ones?"

"Both," he answered. He took a step closer to her. "You know I'd be lying if I said otherwise."

Hesitantly, she reached up to touch the side of his face. "I don't think I've ever thanked you for the way you've supported me while I've been recovering from this fall."

"I never considered doing anything else."

"And I have to admit that you're right about the Doctor." She smiled. "Why don't we continue this conversation later? In my quarters, over dinner? You can explain how you think we could be a little more…flexible with crew protocols."

The sides of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. "I'd like that."

Kathryn's answering smile was only slightly mischievous. "So would I."

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, it's been a fun (if long!) ride, and I was surprised to realize that my author's notes had gotten almost as long as a chapter on their own. If you've made it this far, thank you for reading!
> 
> I wrote the original version of "Limits" during 1998-1999 and it was my first piece of completed fan fiction. It's also the one that borrows the most heavily from my own life. Because of this, "Limits" is both my favorite story and the one of which I'm most proud. This rewritten and expanded version has some significant differences from the original, but the plot and concept are the same.
> 
> At the time I wrote it, _Voyager_ was still on the air and the story comfortably resided within canon. But the events of the sixth and seventh seasons in particular mean it's now an AU story. I've chosen to leave that the way it is. It'd take a lot of fancy explaining and ret-conning to bring the story back into canon, and half the fun of fan fiction is seeing how people thought things might have turned out.
> 
> I've borrowed a number of others' ideas while writing "Limits." In no particular order:
> 
> The quote about waiting in Chapter One is from Paulo Coelho.
> 
> The idea that dilithium is essentially quartz, except with a four-dimensional crystal lattice structure, comes from the book Federation by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. I'm aware that other episodes have established that dilithium can be recrystallized, but I would imagine there's a limit to the number of times that would work.
> 
> Any crystalline substance can be shattered, but the harmonic frequency necessary to do it to quartz and, presumably, dilithium is outside of humans' hearing range. So I've taken a bit of artistic license in Chapter Five. This being said, there's a reason I chose Seven of Nine and her artificially enhanced senses.
> 
> Selonite's effects on sensors were documented as early as The Original Series (they appeared in a short story in Star Trek: The New Voyages). The additional misbehavior is my idea but seemed logical, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out I'm not the first one who has had similar thoughts.
> 
> The Mohorovičić discontinuity (usually shortened to Moho) is the border between a planet's crust and mantle. On Earth, the temperature at that depth is about 500-600 degrees Celsius (930-1100 degrees Fahrenheit).
> 
> Jeri Taylor's book Mosaic outlines Captain Janeway's doctoral research in quantum cosmology.
> 
> The neural transducers were jointly developed by Drs. Beverly Crusher and Toby Russell in the TNG episode, "Ethics." They were never tested or installed because the patient under treatment (Worf) elected to go with a more risky and controversial procedure, which only worked because of his Klingon physiology.
> 
> The research involving damaging mice's sciatic nerves has been going on since the 1970s and is currently being conducted in Germany. The discontinuance was my idea, and is partially based on the fact that research involving stem cell therapies is taking more precedence these days.
> 
> Captain Janeway's pain and movement problems are based on my own experience with a rather complex case of scoliosis.
> 
> The cat/camel is a physical therapy exercise designed to strengthen and improve mobility in the lower back. It's also appropriate outside of physical therapy settings.
> 
> Lieutenant Gary Randleman, Technician Tammy Cartwright and Ensign Arishenith ch'Djamen (Shenith) are original characters. Cartwright's request to be the one who cleaned out Randleman's quarters was inspired by a scene in Danielle Steele's Message from Nam.
> 
> Ensign Brooks and Lieutenant Ayala appeared as background/minor characters in several episodes of Voyager. They were played by Sue Henley and Tarik Ergan respectively, and I've based their first names on the actors' names.
> 
> Lieutenant Rollins appeared as a minor character in the episode, "Caretaker," and was referenced in several other episodes. He was played by Scott MacDonald.
> 
> And, of course, no acknowledgments list would be complete if I didn't thank those who originally brought _Star Trek_ and _Star Trek: Voyager_ to us in the first place! We fans owe a huge debt to Gene Roddenberry, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor and yes, even Rick Berman in addition to the numerous writers, producers and actors that brought these characters to life. I also owe huge debts to everyone who's read and reviewed over the years. Thank you!
> 
> I am neither a geologist nor a medical professional, and that means errors and inaccuracies in "Limits" are my own fault. I have, however, tried to make it as scientifically accurate as possible. But I also wanted to make it entertaining. Hopefully you have enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing!
> 
> Cheers,  
> LFVoy  
>  _October 2012_


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